“In the Last Days,” God says,
“I will pour out my Spirit
on every kind of people:
Your sons will prophesy,
also your daughters;
Your young men will see visions,
your old men dream dreams.
When the time comes,
I’ll pour out my Spirit
On those who serve me, men and women both,
and they’ll prophesy.”
(Acts 2:17-18, The Message)
On this final Friday of 2006, it seems appropriate to speak of dreams. A very important dream about a lighthouse played a role in Songbird’s journey towards ordained ministry, and her dreams last night were vivid and included a flying church.
She tells us to feel as untethered ourselves in responding to this Friday Five.
Tell us all about:
1) a dream you remember from childhood
I used to have a dream in my childhood where I was in a boat of some sort on a river and it went under a bridge. It seems to me that the surroundings were similar (in a vague sort of way) to Vienna, but I’ve never been to Vienna … ever. Nor had I heard about it till I was much older. But the boat was similar to a gondola. I don’t remember much more than that about it. I used to have it often when I was little.
2) a recurring or significant dream
A recurring dream/nightmare I had in my late teens and early twenties was one in which I was in a concentration camp during World War II in eastern Europe. I was speaking a language native to the area. In the dream my character was fully cognizant and could operate and function in the milieu of the camp, but my mind didn’t know what was going on. It was the strangest sensation. At the time I believed I’d been reincarnated. Now I’m not sure what it was.
3) a nightmare
See number 2. Another nightmare I have is one where my children are sick or dying and I behave as if I couldn’t care less. I just continue on with whatever I was doing as if nothing was happening. There is a part of my mind that is screaming at me to get up and **do** something, but the dream me just smiles a very Stepford-wife smile and continues on. It’s horrible.
4) a favorite daydream
I get to be a cowboy out on the wide range. Riding my beautiful cow pony. It’s either a palomino, glinting gold in the sunshine or a black Friesian. We ride together on the wide open prairie. And my butt doesn’t get sore … ever. 😉
5) a dream for the New Year
This is hard … my dreams are all either much too big and nebulous or too small. And they sound much too much like goals. Here’s a dream for my church, Common Table. My dream is that we’ll all dream together. I don’t much care what our dream is. Okay, I care, but I trust us enough to know that we’ll dream good dreams together. But that whatever it is, we’ll figure it out early in the year and go on to fulfill it. I want us to dream something like having a homeless shelter or starting a food pantry or something that’s big and really sort of beyond us. Something that will make us stretch and grow and maybe even hurt a little bit. But it will be a good hurt like when you’re in training for an athletic event. That’s one of my dreams for the New Year of 2007. I’m looking forward to reading the dreams of other RevGals.
