joe joe and i got onto the subject of dreams the other day. he's been exploring the meaning behind some of his of late. a few people have recommended a sort of dream legend that they use to help make sense of the weirdness. in that... "this" in a dream tends to mean "that"... and "that" tends to mean "this".
when joseph (youngest son of jacob - a.k.a. genesis 37) had his fascinating boyhood dreams, we don't really know how much he understood them at the time. his siblings figured they were yet another indication that baby brother thought he was better than them all. regardless... it was years before meaning fell fully into place for any of them. and interestingly... scripture gives no indication that those dreams brought little joe much comfort in the middle of his egyptian enslavement & imprisonment.
more than his own dreams... joseph became known for his ability to make sense of the dreams of others. dreams that were much more literal than the ones i hear most people trying to interpret today. still... joseph credits G*D with the interpretation more than his own logic.
so... it seems to me that at the very least we should spend more time talking with G*D about our dreams than attempting to figure them out on our own.
beth regularly has dreams, but usually she doesn't remember them. we'll be sleeping away and all of a sudden she starts talking... or worse! there's the famous ground beef dream... the leaky water softener dream... the kid on the bike dream... the toenail dream.
i could go on.
the other night, just after i turned out the light from coming to bed late... she rolled over and said, "are you okay?" "yes", i responded. to which she said "what's going on with your hair?"
being billiard ball bald... and the unusually sensitive hubby that i am, i said, "it's gone!"
i'm not sure if my tone stirred her into a less vulnerable level of sleep... or if my answer satisfied her subconscious curiosity. either way... she plopped her head back onto the pillow as if to say, "i think i just made a fool of myself... and i'm not speaking to you ever again." she didn't remember anything the next morning.
i seldom remember my dreams. not sure why. but last week i had one that was less forgettable... mostly because it was a replay of a dream i'd had weeks before.
i was standing outside a large building (i think it was a hospital) talking with a woman i'd never met before. she wasn't the type i'd spontaneously strike up a conversation with. she was disheveled... greasy hair... deeply wrinkled face... gray tone to her skin... the kind who tempts you to hold your breath when you walk past. a positive personality would classify her grin as "half-toothed".
in the original dream, she approached me to ask how i was doing... and i cordially responded with a list of ailments accurately depicting my health woes... yet without exaggeration. she countered with a sad story about her child who was stricken with something or other. i don't remember what... and it doesn't really matter. the point was (or so it seemed in the dream) that this little dream bag lady's story "upped" mine infinitely. i wasn't offended, but i found myself speechless as to how to respond to her misery.
the "re-run" version felt deja' vu-ish at first. i was outside the same building... and my eyes met the same woman. but it was like we were meeting for the first time... getting a second chance, of sorts. i immediately anticipated our conversation and the story she'd tell. so i led with my rook, and invited her to "go first" in our tale-of-sorrow match. but the story she painted was not the same as in my original dream. it was horribly worse. and she did not counter to invite me to use my brushes on her canvas... nor did i care to. i threw my arms around her and we hugged for what seemed a wonderful forever. end of dream.
then someplace between conscious sleep and unconscious sleep... these words lodged in my mind.
"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." (matthew 18:20)
the context of the verse doesn't seem to directly apply. i would have much more anticipated matthew 25:40 ('i tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'). but i find it fascinating that instead, this particular verse came to bring context to my dream.
mother teresa used to say that she would see the face of Jesus in every person to whom she ministered. now we know from her journal that she struggled to feel G*D in times of prayer & meditation... and that seeing his face in the less fortunate was a huge part of why she did what she did. in reality she was admitting that she did it for herself as much as she did it for them... or even for him. that's comforting to know.
i can't say that i saw Jesus in the face of the bag lady in my dreams... but it was obvious that Jesus was there, inhabiting our hug... which is strangely how i believe my dream connects with this verse.
in reality... whenever i give a moment of my day to the presence of Jesus... and then happen to "kaleid" with another person... the two of us gather in Jesus' name whether or not the other person knows it. so... just like in my dream... Jesus shows up and does his Jesus thing. it might come without words. it might be completely unexpected. but living with Jesus moment by moment creates LIFE moments... ...seconds when things are more like they were meant to be.
we don't have to orchestrate them. they just happen when we're present to the reality that G*D is with us.
and when he is... he changes everything.
them.
me.
us.
sometimes i think we spend too much time dreaming while we're awake... and should spend more time sleep-walking in G*D's dreams.
i may not know what the next season holds for me. but i do know that i long for more of those moments when somehow i get to inhale and offer the scent of Jesus to all of us who have become content with the smell of stench... if nothing else, making a difference one nostril at a time... watching the wonder of LIFE as he reshapes everything... watching the dreams of G*D become the reality of men.
not b.h.a.g.s (big hairy audacious goals) as jim collins proposes,
just following a b.h.a.G. (big honkin' amazing G*D).
okay... maybe i should have ended this post a few sentences earlier than i did. sorry.
Comments