It was just a dream

It was just a dream

Written by Dan McDonald 

            My creativity has not been in writing fiction. I did have a peculiar dream a few days ago and it seems to be just Gothic enough to tell for Halloween. I don't dream often but there are times I try to wonder what my dreams mean. Is it undigested food, or a gift from God and if I can't know the difference then how do I treat the themes of undigested food in a fitting way as if the dream were a gift from God? Here is the story of a dream I experienced a few days ago.

            I was in a room. I don’t remember seeing the tour guide but someone was talking to us like tour guides do. He was telling us that where we stood was once a thriving community, but now most everyone was gone. It was now a ghost town with only a few people remaining. There was one other person who seemed to be taking the tour with me. I said to him something like "I'm going to ask some of the townspeople here for their stories of the town." He didn't reply and I felt from his way of looking at me that he wondered what I was talking about. I paused.

            I said, “You don’t see the people here.” As he never answered I decided to ignore him and turned away from him and towards the townspeople still remaining in the town.

            There was a girl, about high school age, standing directly in front of me as I moved forward. I said to her, “Tell me your story,. Why did you choose to remain here?” Her answer was blunt, and stunned me. She said with a matter of fact tone “I was murdered when I was 14.” I began to notice the townspeople there were more of an ashen shade, different from the person who hadn’t seen the townspeople. I said mostly to myself but still in conversation with the girl, “That explains things.” The girl did intrigue me, her murder and her standing in my presence. I tried to get her to tell me more about her life and how she was murdered. She tried to speak but the words could not be understood. She then turned away as if frustrated or distrusting me. She wouldn't or couldn't speak and I wasn't sure which.

            I’ve thought about this dream almost every day since I had it a few days ago. Is there meaning to it? Or have I watched too many movies like “Lovely Bones” or “The Sixth Sense”. Was it the movies I had watched? Or is the better explanation that in the last three years all of my siblings have died? My oldest brother died in 2014, my other brother in 2016, and my sister this past January. Do I feel a sense of nearness to departing and to the departed? Was God in this dream or simply my conscience or my brain working out something in regard to my feelings of being surrounded by death? Dreams lead us to think. I began to dream in a metaphorical sense about what the dream meant in a literal sense.

            I believe in tradition. I believe in that worship described in Hebrews 12. We come to a heavenly worship, to the new Jerusalem above when we come to worship. It is a heavenly city where the spirits of just men made perfect dwell. This is part of the reason why there is a Christian tradition that makes much of how Christians lived and worshipped in the past centuries and millennia. Christian tradition is not simply a matter of historical events, old dusty documents, or mere stories of the past. Christian tradition involves our coming to worship, our coming to the heavenly Jerusalem and discovering a cloud of witnesses surrounding the throne of our Lamb of God, the great high priest. Here the spirits of just men made perfect surround the throne and join in our redeemer's intercessions on our behalf continually. We seek to remain faithful to the tradition because our tradition is not tied to dead men and women, but to those saints dwelling around the throne of the Lamb. These are the saints who have ascended in spirit and are joining our Great High Priest as He makes his intercessory prayer for each  and all of us. The apostles, the holy martyrs, and everyday believing men and women of every ages is joined in praying the prayers of the Lamb of God on heaven's throne.

            Or could this dream have a sadder expression? Could it be possible that this dream set before me how our desire for justice on this side of the veil so often is full of disappointment? The young girl could not tell me about her murder, whether the perpetrator had been discovered. In Lovely Bones, the deceased managed to intervene in earthly affairs and save her murderer’s next target. In my dream the girl could tell me she had been murdered at age 14, but could say nothing more. In matters of justice we sometimes are the ones who must speak for others who cannot speak for themselves. There are times when even if we are disposed to do the good thing, we cannot know the essentials necessary to bring forth justice.

            Over the years for me personally, the transition from the darkness of Halloween to the celebration of All Saints Day has become a wonderful reminded that though we find ourselves in a world of sin and darkness, that the promise of redemption and celebration is directly ahead. In Halloween we face monsters, forces of the dead, trials, tribulations, suffering, all sorts of evil. But the promise before us is the promise of redemption, life, and eternal salvation. We face the deadly tricks and treats of our enemy symbolized in our cultural remembrance of Halloween with its darkness; but we also experience the joyous redemption that belongs to the spirits of just men made perfect.

 

Happy All-Saints Day