my favorite dream in the minds of the mystics...

March 24 and 25, 2006, I wrote the following entries about my "favorite" dream:

my favorite dream...
...begins dismally. I'm either climbing up through a false ceiling in a dark, cramped, rodent-infested closet or I am ascending a gloomy staircase into something like a turret, with tiny windows along the way giving a view that triggers vertigo. Chipped paint and cobwebs show that this route has not been recently taken, let alone maintained. In that respect, it is much like the condition of the closet. Both variations of the dream's introduction have me going through a tiny trap-door opening at the top of the closet/turret. I climb into what I presume will be an even grimmer attic. Every time, to my surprise, this "attic" is ridiculously more spacious than the underlying structure warrants. Also, it is lavish and beautifully prepared for occupancy: heavy and rich wood doors and floors, huge vaulting ceilings, Persian rugs and elegant furnishings. A strange but somehow natural light suffuses through the closed, frothy curtains covering rank after rank of tall windows. As I explore, I find that each room is more breath-taking than the last. I feel like a child who stumbled onto a fairy castle, a castle kept long, but spotlessly ready, waiting for its inhabitants. I am thrilled to have "discovered" the place, thrilled to have it all to myself.In times past, I had this dream frequently...at least 3-4 times a year. After each occurrence, I'd feel light-hearted and unusually joyful the whole next day. One time about a year ago, I had this same dream, but this time other people found their way into the attic behind me. My initial reaction was disappointment. Having these people come to me and want me to help them find their own "places" in the castle took away the magic and made my own place there that of a servant. It was the last time I had the dream.In time, I came to realize the dreams were a question: would I take the beautiful spiritual world I have indeed been given and share it with others? Apparently, my subconscious initially said, "no." Since then, my conscious mind committed my will to the challenge of making myself available no matter what my subconscious desires might selfishly be and no matter what the personal sacrifice of intimacy and freedom. Since then, God has orchestrated a series of unusual events, books, people--to bombard me with opportunity to strengthen this "will to serve" that I've committed into His hands. I've prayed to have the dream again, in the hopes of being a better "hostess" to weary climbers. I miss the dream enough now that I'd be happy to share it, if it means I, too, get a part of it again. Oh, to have it just one more time...but even that is a sign that I haven't quite "got there" yet. I'll probably have it again, the very day I forget to want it...Isn't it strange for a dream to be that powerful over my waking life?

and the next day I wrote:

...today I discovered a verse in the words of the ancient prophet Zechariah that matches my dream...at least the component of the tiny passage leading to a palace so large that it can not be of the same "reality" as the closet/stairway, the impossibility of the largeness and beauty of the one place sitting above the small and grimness of the other:"Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh; he is just and having salvation." The connection doesn't appear until you look into the Hebrew word origins for the King James here. The word translated in this verse as salvation is also applied in other references to convey the idea "broad, ample, spacious and opulent." Wow!


Now, 3 years and a bit later, I'm reading a Larry Crabb book entitles Becoming a True Spiritual Community and find he uses the following to describe the "other place to be" that is found in the musings of the likes of Augustine and Teresa of Avila. He describes a state of being equivalent to choosing between two rooms, one being the self-actualizing, self-made room below, and the other the "Christ in you" room that Paul describes in scripture. One, the room fashioned for us by Spirit of God and the other, the room designed by the flesh to "preserve and enhance one's own well-being."

Crabb goes into a rather thorough survey of these two rooms, and I find myself seeing definition to the "secret, hidden apartment" that has eluded my dreams for so long now...For the record, here are some of his distinctions between life in the two domains (rooms) as well as observations on how to secure the "upper" one:

These are the furnishings of the Lower Room: (1) We long for good relationships; (2) we look after our own needs; (3) the world both frustrates and satisfies us, sometimes one more than the other; we learn what we like about the world and go after it; and (4) we are aware of a moral code that tells us what we should and should not do in our pursuit of happiness.

This is life in the first room. God isn't there-at least, He isn't recognized or taken into account. But that's where most of us live.

There is a second room, another place, another way to live. In every human heart there is a sense of something more...
...In people not yet connected to Christ, the better room is there but it's dark. (I am speaking of the eternal soul in every person.) The electricity has not yet been hooked up. And there are no furnishings...But when the Spirit resurrects the soul and infuses it with new life, the room sparkles with light...
...People long for relationship. In the Upper Room, it already exists. No one 'demands' relationship in this room. They already have it, and they know that one day they will fully and forever enjoy its pleasures. And people in the Upper Room aren't obsessed with figuring life out. They prefer to live life rather than analyze it. They have no sense that something fragile within them needs protection and no compelling urge to find themselves. They have already been found. With the pantry full, their strongest desire is to set another place at the table and invite someone else in to enjoy the feast.

Crabb notes the point in scripture where Jesus designates the room in which the Passover meal was to be taken, He directs His disciples to seek a man carrying a jar of water. (Luke 22:10-12) What Crabb says next has never occurred to me before--that this man would stand out for one primary reason: he was doing "women's work" in carrying a jar. He was not bound by the pride and authority of his position as a man in his society. In the culture of Jesus' day, such a man would be unique in all the ways that signal an Upper Room host. And, I rejoiced again for catching one of those glimmers of perfection that flash all over the Gospels, but that we're so often too preoccupied to notice.

So many things to "catch up" on in this blog, God. I love my time musing here with You. But this is a good start. Life changes loom large in the days ahead for me, but great is the reminder of the assurances You give that these changes will sprout from seeds You planted, planted even three seasons ago in soil that was busy with other crops, but whose germinating is nevertheless a sure thing.

My one prayer for today is this: thank You for taking me exploring again, exploring in the Upper Room. Thanks You that its shadows are taking substance. Thanks You for bringing again Your words:
Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh. He is just and having salvation!