Nolan went home that night exhausted, well fed and basically in a good mood despite the being dunked a few times in the pool. He was safe, even though he never knew he had been in danger. Nolan also didn’t know the issues swirling around his life. He didn’t see the issues with child abusers, he didn’t see the issues with the mafia or the FBI. His uncle worked at the FBI and Nolan had great respect for the institution. School had taught Nolan to be a patriot by supporting the government. His perspective on being a patriot would one day change but for now, he trusted the institutions of his country whole heartedly. There was no way for him to see the gang issues swirling around or how deep the satanism problem ran. Nolan was oblivious and all the happier for his youthful innocence. He laid down in the safety provided by God and the family and other people God had put in his life and he was unaware that anything was even happening.
As soon as Nolan’s head hit the pillow, he was out cold. Dreams started immediately but they were so faint that they never even pierced his conscious mind. After several hours of rest, his mind began to see through the haze of sleep and rest. A scene appeared before his eyes and he saw himself sitting in a car on the freeway. He couldn’t see who was driving the car but the freeway looked very strange. It was bright, as if a back light on the other side of a screen was making it appear. It looked like the road that ran through his home town except the freeway was suspended high in the air.
The radio began to run a commercial about the freeway. Who advertises a freeway? But there it was, Nolan could hear the announcer saying that the new road was good. They were calling the freeway the new road and without giving any level of detail, the ad just kept repeating words about how the new road had to be the right road. It was the only road. No other roads were like the new road. While the road did look nice, it seemed strange that the ad would be trying to make people believe in the virtues of the new road without saying anything about why.
Then a man appeared next to the car door as it drove down the freeway. The man pulled Nolan out of the car and began to carry him off of the new road. Nolan didn’t know enough of his dreams to know this yet, but the man was an angel sent from God to teach him something. The angel began to take him onto the old roads. No one could see the old roads from the new road. The new road was so high in the air that the old roads were out of sight. But the old roads were also raised up in the air. They were very cartoonish, suspended in mid-air with nothing to hold them up.
The old roads ran through the air like a roller coaster ride. They twisted and turned and intertwined with each other, the old roads even went upside down and did loops. There were so many and the man in the dream just kept walking Nolan through as he taught Nolan about them. Nolan didn’t remember what he was being taught but the man was teaching and teaching every step of the way.
After going through a labyrinth of old roads, across a great green landscape the man took Nolan to another old road. There was a large pile there that looked like scaffolding. They began to climb the massive steel and concrete vertical structure which held the highest of the old roads up in the sky. When they got to the top, the man passed Nolan off to a woman who was already on the highest road. Nolan didn’t enough about his dreams to know this too was an angel, but she was an angel for a later time in his life. The dream ended there but it would pick right back up at that same spot years from now.
Nolan didn’t wake up at the end of this dream, he just shifted into another dream. But the two angels were helping guide him into things he didn’t yet understand and maybe he never would. Still he dreamed and the hand of God was moving Nolan towards an older system and away from the newest and most popular one. One day this would lead him into the highest destiny God had for Nolan’s life. It would be the intersection of a life of preparation and all the burning desires placed in his stomach when he received the coals from the fire.
Practice Outlaw 