When Dreams Come True, Part II

So many dreams and the strange way they make Your word glare as if under the swipe of a highlighter:

A "bad" one in which I was in a strange church of bumpy, carpeted catacombs that seemed to swarm outward for light years. As C.S. Lewis succinctly puts the thought: "Something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity." I perceived this place in such a state. Dark, dingy, out of focus and uneven. In this place, I was wrongly used by a spiritual authority during his "sermon" while a sad and silent woman at his side telepathically pitied me. But I surprised them both, for after the service, I marched up to him, and--standing my ground--told him that were it not for my intercession he'd have suffered much for his affront to me, suffered because I belonged to One who could protect me from him, should I but ask it.

That dream is tol here only to clarify another one that grew out of it. It was one of those strange impression dreams...a single image full of spiritual weight that proves hard to define. In it, I saw before me a small, three-legged footstool. It had a warm honey-brown leather cushion on top of three legs of beautiful gleaming wood. It filled me with feelings of good. But it was stuck fast against a large ugly ottoman that was of such a nature that I knew it came from that dark catacombs "church." They most surely did not belong together, soI tried to pull the "good" little footstool away from having to touch the weighty ugly one, but I could not budge it.

A few days later, another short impression dream came to me. One that again had that expanded-senses quality. I stood in what seemed like a park pavilion, only it was enclosed by curtains that hung from high above. I looked up and realized with a spiritual gasp that often accompanies these too-large dreams that the pavilion was a good three storeys tall and the curtains spanned the full distance, hanging from rings on a pole suspended very near the roof overhang. Actually two ranks of curtains were hung: one rank of three storey white semi-sheers hung outside another rank. This second set was but two storeys tall, also on a pole that surrounded the enclosure. The taller ones were set outside the the shorter ones, making them only visible to me, now that I think about it. The curtains, although light, were so long that they moved only slightly in the breeze, and in long rippling waves like a sea. I stood alone on the cement floor of that empty place wondering why I was there. The dream ended.

A few days later, my daily Bible reading brought me across these verses that were prominent in the heart of King David: "Now it came to pass, while David was dwelling in his house, that David said to the prophet Nathan, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant is under tent curtains.'" And later he said again of his plans for building the Lord's temple--and this time said to more than the prophet, but rather said to all of assembled Israel: "Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it." And I ponder this like it is a distant island and I on a bobbing boat.

More clearly, I understand this theme. Dreams of trash everywhere, and in more than just my own dreams. I told a friend once that God is not a God of waste. That nature reflects His nature in that everything dies one year but is somehow incorporated back into the newness of life that comes the next year.
Nevertheless, many times latelyI dream of being in a filthy environment.

First, I dream of being in a foul and dirty house ruled by the same being that haunted the catacombs dream. Only here, he is an evil clown, and this time his sad moppet woman was pegged as a tool to trick me; but again he fails, and not because I profess divine protection. Rather it seems this time that profession is being tested. But my response is don not by my own words or ingenuity, I hardly know why I am there or what I am doing. My success is attributed to sheer and detailed obedience. I make every move a physical enactment of an impression put to my mind. And in the end, these words ring out over all of us who inhabit that dream, ring from above: "The truth shall set you free!" And their dirty, over-used, rag-doll forms shrink away.

Then again, I dreamed of being in an abandoned house, one with no furnishings, but still filthy with the left-behind trash that finds its way to heap in corners and over threshholds. I consider cleaning it, but as I wander and debate, I find a the only piece of furniture left in the place: a large wooden secretary. I pull up the roll-top to discover another secret roll-top compartment smaller than the first. Lifting that one felt so wonderful and so magical to open, like finding a secret treasure. Inside was a secret spice rack. Twelve bottles of incredibly fine wood, five on each side flanking two central ones going the opposite direction, making a sort of cross. The two central ones striking me as the salt and pepper--the most prominent spices. But the oddity of them being wood. Usually such a rack has the spice jars of glass. Other dreams of wooden objects, wood where wood is rarely used and these wooden things always in dreams with a message of reassurance or of premonition. Only after many days pass do I make the connection--You were a carpenter. Things of supernaturally beautiful wood indicate their having been shaped in Your hands. And as usual, I can't help but wonder how I failed to see that from the start.

But, back to the theme of trash in dreams. Moving beyond my own night imagery, Elijah dreamed he found a secret stairway that led to a hidden sleeping man, and this all happening in a strangely trashy version of our own house. (And it would have to be pretty trashy version to make an impression of excess on him.)

And finally, the one in which I was in Our garden...the place where You, my Lord, and I have spent many a private conversation and enjoyed communion. The same place where You fed me burnished-gold fruit. And it was then and there that I was I suppose endowed with a wisdom direct from Your hand, for Solomon speaks of a Wisdom personified in the feminine gender. And she speaks these words: "My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold."

But one dream in that garden found it dark and stormy. I stood within the gate, somehow knowing myself protected, but nonetheless alone, and I looked out through the bars for You. Dead leaves swirled around my feet. Dead leaves...anything not immediately incorporated back into life in that garden place was an unusual sign. How long since I had that dream: one year, or maybe two? So long to understand the purpose of the common theme. Funny how You can focus it for me in what seems like an instant, like the view through a lens grows suddenly sharp with one small turn, making everything comprehensible.

The turn of that lens began with my making such a racket through prayer and beseeching. I reached out and indeed did not find You anywhere near. I remembered a time when You were always obvious to me within an instant of my seeking. Now I go days without that sense of Your personal presence. Why? Then I feared that my own recollection was faulty. Had our intimacy ever been what I remembered? Or was my imagination playing with my memory? But like a weaned child I sat quietly while doing without You; until finally, You came and said to me: "What if it were true? What if I were no more than a cardboard dummy, and all you suffering were in vain? What would you do?"

First, my heart leaped at that familiar knowing, that sureness of Your nearness once again. But I proceeded immediately to the question You presented. "I suppose I'd turn bitter, learn to hate life, find I had to keep muddling through anyway, finally realizing that nothing had changed except that now I approached it all with a bad attitude. Then again, I could turn bad myself. Submit to wickedness for the sake of embracing the ease that comes with it--but naah...that never seemed to work for me like it does for other people."

"That was a gift," You said pointedly.

"I figured as much," I said in return just as direct.

Then I laughed while I climbed into Your perfect father-lap, and I raised my hand to touch Your face. At that moment, I had one of those jolts to my imagination that often accompany Your visits. I saw my own hand carried a scar.

Long I have gone with nothing but a memory of what You told me about that scar. In that prayer-scape, we stood together, my hand in Yours; and I asked You what this phrase meant: to get behind the affliction of Christ. To suffer for Your sake, and not for the sake of sin, but in order to cooperate with the work You would accomplish in this place. How does one experience it? How does one endure it? And immediately light pierced through Your hand and then mine.

I learned a lot in receiving that vision of scarring. First, that it came only by the sanction of Your Divine Light. Second, that it came through You first. Third, that its magnitude would be minimal compared to the rest of Your suffering, for You went even unto death and into the depths of Hell. But, it would nevertheless mark me as associated with You. This vision I had well over a year ago. Many times in the intervening days I have seem myself a player (obviously) in these settings of conflict between good and evil, but never hve I borne that mark accomplished upon me...until now. So I am encouraged even in the midst of the trials. I am encouraged to know that what was foretold is coming to be, and I am surviving.

And then this morning, I pondered these dreams and the way I have been serving as a litmus test, a sorting tool, the daughter of His people who sits in affliction while He looks for the answer to the question: Who will help? And the trash in the dreams--all that time--they told the story of these days of affliction.
One little proverb in the quiet of my morning Bible reading today.
One little proverb read in the dark while others slept.
One little proverb shattering so much confusion in the visionary world even as it lightly whispers into the peace of the functional world.
And this is it:
"Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste."
We have been fallow ground, lying in wait for the opportunity to be productive. Knowing food waits to grow, looking for the coming of spring.
And as for all the waste: it marks the days in which justice has been measured all around us, in which we have indeed fulfilled our side of the agreement, in which we said we would step behind those afflictions of Yours as You sort and measure what has been, what is, and look to what is to be.
And in every one of these justice-dreams, upon completion of that time spent studying trash comes a time of change, exploration, discovery, and fresh newness.

So Scott, I would tell you this:
You've heard me recently claiming that while I don't have a death-wish, I also don't have a life-wish right now, that life as it has been lately has held little appeal for me, especially the more I become aware of that larger reality. And even though we feel at an impasse in our joint venture into the will of God regarding what even now remains out of focus in God's plans for our futures; nevertheless, once again, my husband, I can say I look forward to the days ahead.