Poetry and My White Stone

Tomorrow night I begin a Bible Study of the book of Revelation. As I prepare, I'm finding that the book is inviting me to think about God and my relationship with God in a different way. It is as though the book is activating a different part of my brain and heart. It feels like the part of me engaged with the text is similar to the part of me that gets engaged with the reading of poetry.

The book is dense with images. Some of these are known to me. Examples include the lamb, the two edged sword and the massive city. Many, however are not known to me. Part of the work of reading the book is to slow down enough to consider and play with the images.

This morning I found a new image that greatly appeals to me. The second and third chapter of the book consists of seven short letters to seven churches just off the coast of the Aegean Sea in present day Turkey. The third of these short letters is to the church in the town of Pergamum. John writes to them 'to anyone who conquers... I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.' (2:17)

What is that white stone? I tried to picture what it might look like, what it might feel like. Perhaps it fits in my palm. Is it a white stone that is slightly transparent? I think so. And of course, I wonder, if I were to receive one, what my new name might be. Would it be in English, or in some mysterious language, the sounds of which somehow communicate who I really am and how it is that God loves me? I can imagine these things and it makes me want one of those stones.