Broken Chain, The

Dad
May 28, 2003

—MONovember 29, 1977 DFO 653

1. I DREAMED I WAS GOING UP IN THIS RICKETY OLD-FASHIONED EUROPEAN-TYPE ELEVATOR with the open cage and the open shaft, where you can see the stairway winding around the elevator shaft as you go slowly up. It bumps along and bangs into the sides—only this one seemed to be unusually rickety! I said,

2. "MY LORD, THIS THING IS IN BAD SHAPE! It really is in terrible condition; they better take care of it." And I looked up and noticed there was only one chain, and no safety chain!

3. THE OLD ELEVATORS USED TO OPERATE ON CHAINS and weights, instead of like modern elevators. Today they always have two or three or even four cables. So if any one of them breaks, the others are still there to support them. Even if the elevator is overloaded, they sink down very slowly to the bottom floor due to their special systems of safety brakes and safety cables.

4. BUT THIS ELEVATOR JUST HAD THIS ONE BIG CHAIN and it was going up, up, up. When we finally got to the top I had the feeling, "Boy, I want to get off this thing in a hurry!"

5. JUST AS I JUMPED OUT AND GRABBED ONTO A GIRDER ON THE ROOF‚ THE CHAIN BROKE and the elevator went plummeting to the ground! Thank God there was nobody else in it! The elevator broke off on one side of the pulley wheel and the chain, of course, started sliding off the other side.

6. I TRIED TO CATCH THE BROKEN CHAIN, figuring I would save a lot of trouble if we could hook it up there somewhere. So I grabbed the chain and I pulled and pulled until I finally managed to hook it over some kind of a hook so that the end of the chain wouldn't fall all the way down to the bottom of the shaft.

7. I CAN REMEMBER HANGING ONTO THAT GIRDER AND LEANING OVER THE SHAFT LOOKING DOWN; it seemed like it was about eight or ten floors to the bottom. It was really kind of scary! It scared me so much it woke me up!

8. IT MIGHT SYMBOLIZE SOME PART OF OUR BUILDING OR STRUCTURE THAT'S WEAK‚ where the people haven't taken proper care of it. We have discovered some areas where for a long time they have neglected things and neglected their leadership and their people and their job and the Word.

9. AN ELEVATOR IS FOR LIFTING PEOPLE UP, RIGHT?—Or lowering them gently, and this one was really in very poor shape.

10. THE CHAIN—MAYBE IT'S THE CHAIN OF COOPERATION!—A broken Chain of Cooperation because of some weak link! And the weak link was right at the top, it was the end of the chain!

11. THE CHAIN DIDN'T BREAK IN THE MIDDLE‚ IT BROKE RIGHT AT THE TOP! And I couldn't save the elevator. I guess that means I couldn't save the district or the area, the damage was done.

12. BUT I MANAGED TO GRAB THE TOP OF THE CHAIN ANYHOW AND SAVED IT. So maybe we have somehow saved the Chain of Cooperation and some of the leadership represented by the chain. But we couldn't save the crashed elevator, the damage was already done by the break in the chain.

13. ONE AREA'S STATS HAVE REALLY CRASHED within the last few months, and they're in very bad shape. We have already discovered that there were very weak links at the top of the chain that broke.

14. THANK GOD I WAS THERE AND ABLE TO SAVE IT, but I tell you, it was scary and it came awful close—the real damage! There weren't any people on the elevator, thank the Lord, and it got me up to the top‚ but then it broke. Now that's symbolic too:

15. THAT CHAIN HAS PULLED ME UP TO THE TOP. You folks and your cooperation have pulled me to the top and kept me there. But if one of those links breaks, especially right near the top‚ it can do a lot of damage!—And that is exactly what happened!

16. THANK THE LORD IT DIDN'T DRAG ME OR ANY OTHER PEOPLE DOWN WITH IT! It just plummeted down to the bottom empty, which may be symbolic of their stats!

17. SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THEIR ELEVATION AND INSPIRATION THERE, MAYBE NEGLECT OF THE WORD, which we found it was! This is a subject which we also dealt with in a recent Letter called "Grace vs. Law." (See No. 635.)

18. SOME VERY TOP LEADERSHIP WANDERED AND WERE LED ASTRAY. They got off the track, neglected the Word and neglected their duties, and their whole stats went plummeting almost to the bottom!

19. WE BARELY MANAGED TO SAVE THE CHAIN IN TIME‚ which I hope symbolizes that we will be able to somehow repair the situation and get it back in operation.

20. I GUESS THE BROKEN CHAIN WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART because that was the thing I was most concerned about saving. The elevator was already lost and the damage was done, but I was trying to save the chain. I did manage to grab it right at the top. Isn't that funny, the end of the chain!

21. I HOOKED IT TO SOME PART OF THE BUILDING up there to hold it. I hooked it over some hook. Well, what's the hook?—The Word!

22. SO I PUT THE CHAIN BACK ON THE WORD OF GOD where it needed to be.—And that was their problem. We have neglected that part of the world, so it's probably partly our fault. We haven't supervised it closely enough.—But we are now!

23. WE'VE GOT TROUBLESHOOTERS THERE NOW THAT ARE STRAIGHTENING OUT THE MESS, thank the Lord! The people there are confessing their faults, mistakes and shortcomings, wanderings and neglects, so we are getting them hooked back on the Word! Thank God!