My spouse rarely remembers his dreams. Unless they are about bugs or snakes, he'll wake up completely oblivious to that alternate life he's lead overnight. Sometimes, I'm envious of his dream-amnesia. I regularly wake up foggy from dreams, their wisps interfering with my morning routine, disturbing my sense of the present. My dreams are often emotionally-charged, peppered with characters who feel like real people, and it takes effort--like wiping sleep from my eyes--to move from the dream world to reality. My dreams instruct me, help me solve problems, let me know where my relationships need work, and at the least, signal where my major stressors lie.
But recently, JT had a dream that he remembered. It's such a rare event, that I was really excited to hear about it. I propped myself up on an elbow, thrilled for this view into his psyche, his ambitions, his dreams. I expected tales of flying or fighting robots or a fantastic meal that he ate in a beautiful locale with ingredients that we may be able to mimic in real life.
"Well," he started. "We were in bed in the morning, and Jo [our daughter] woke up. You brought her into bed with us, but she wouldn't go back to sleep. So, she started naming us, pointing and saying, 'Mommy. Daddy.'"
So far, this dream was unimpressive. In fact, it the exact scene we had experienced only an hour or so before, when Jo actually did wake up, come into our bed, and proceed to name us all. I continued to wait for the moment when reality would blur and Jo would sprout wings or start singing opera or something.
"So, then I said to her, 'Who are you?'" he continued. "And then--this is the weird part--she pointed to herself and said, 'Jo. I am Jo.'" He had been silent for a few minutes before I realized he had related the entirety of his dream. Yes, his dream had departed from reality: or daughter had never said her name. Much less put together a short sentence to accompany her self-introduction. But it seemed like there should be more. If he was remembering it, there must be something remarkable.
"Really?" I said. "That's what you dreamed?" "Yep," he said, rolling out of bed. And that was that.
It's make me think a lot about dreams. Me? I put a lot of stock in them and enjoy trying to stretch out that space between dreaming and awake so that I can remember the things my mind is working on when I'm not exactly there to run the show. And so often, they are impossible imaginings, wild and exciting, and I'm left dizzy trying to figure out how to translate the to life. But JT's dream was so simple, so small, so possible. And suddenly, his dream felt more like prophecy than my own.
I'm preaching this week at a classmate's church. He uses the lectionary, and he typically uses three readings: from the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalms or Epistle, and Gospels. I was intimidated by this task at first, unsure how I would handle navigating three texts during worship, and how I might craft a sermon that was harmonious. I assumed I would be simply picking one passage and lightly brushing upon (or perhaps even ignoring) the others in my message. But last week, as I read the passages again, I understood: these are about dreams. All of them are about dreams.
Check them out: Genesis 37: 1-28, Psalm 105 1-6, 16-22, 43-45, and Matthew 14: 22-33.
I'm not sure where this message is headed yet. I'm not entirely sure I can wrap it all up with a bow. But I do think that there's something here worth exploring: something about the dreams God has for us, about our own dreams and how we follow them, and how it's possible, even in reality, to live out our dreams.
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