April 14, 2003
DOWN HOME:
Of PIN numbers & Pearly Gates
___Whooo-boy, I'm glad I woke up from that ugly nightmare.
___I dreamed we Baptists were wrong, and salvation wasn't completely a free gift of grace like we've been taught for generations.
___Well, that's not exactly right, either: In my dream, salvation was a free gift of God's grace, realized through faith in Jesus Christ. But when you get to heaven, you have to type in a "Personal Identification Number" to open the Pearly Gates.
___And I forgot mine.
___So, here I was, standing on a cloud in my radiant white robe, trying all the standard PIN numbers I ever used down here on Earth. I started to panic when I recalled how the ATM machine at my bank in Texas only lets me try so many combination
s of numbers before it assumes I'm a faker and shuts down. And then I got really nervous when my robe started turning from radiant white to paper white, to ivory, then ecru and stone, almond, light tan and so on every time I punched in a wrong number.
___By that time, I was figuring I wouldn't need to remember a single digit to get through the gates of You-Know-Where. After all, didn't Jesus say, "The way is easy and the numbers don't have to add up to walk the path that leads to hellfire," or something like that?
___Well, you don't have to have the Gift of Interpretation to figure out some dreams. This dream has been listed in the Insecurity Lexicon of Recurrent Dreams. Like remembering just before finals that you've been enrolled in the toughest math course in school. Or the one about somehow, you're never quite sure, you've lost all your clothes and you have to run home.
___You've never had dreams like that? Count yourself blessed. Or repressed. Whatever.
___Anyway, I knew right away why I had the PIN Number at the Pearly Gates dream.
___Somehow, I've managed to erase the computer file where I stored all my PIN numbers. I kept them filed under my birthday in the calendar section of my "personal digital assistant."
___And there were a zillion of them: The security code for the alarm at the office. The ATM authorization for a couple of credit cards. The passwords for a whole passel of computer and Internet programs. My frequent-flyer authorization codes. The password for the security code for the alarm at the office, in case I forget the security code and the police show up. The password for my favorite online bookstore. My voicemail authorization code. Sometimes, I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of PIN numbers.
___Oh, great. Now I know what I'm going to dream tonight. I just hope some of the zeros look like life preservers.
___By the way, if you see me at an ATM machine punching furiously, just drive on by. Sure, I'll be perplexed. But I'll also be thanking God I won't need a PIN number to open the Pearly Gates.
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
|