We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Dreams figure a great deal in scripture. For most people, Joseph comes immediately to mind when we talk about dreams and the Bible. Dreams are even more central to his story than his coat of many colors. His dreams get him into and out of trouble.
Nebuchadnezzar once had a dream that he was so sure was from a supernatural source that he refused to tell any of his servants what the dream even was.
He wanted to make absolutely certain that he got the correct interpretation for it, so he told all of his magicians, enchanters and sorcerers that he would only accept their interpretations if they could tell him both the dream he dreamed and the interpretation of the dream without him ever saying a word about it. He even threatened to kill them if they were not able to carry out his orders.
Daniel is neither a magician nor sorcerer but a true prophet. God reveals the dream given to Nebuchadnezzar to Daniel who tells the King about the dream and its interpretation, explaining that “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” (Dan 2:28).
This begins the shift and change in Nebuchadnezzar’s theology to embrace of the God of Israel. The whole story ends with Yahweh’s supernatural servants in Babylon (Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) being promoted to oversee the affairs of the province.
But, it’s not just the Hebrew Scripture that we find dreams. The angel Gabriel comes in a dream to Joseph, the “earthly father” of Jesus, and tells him about Mary’s pregnancy. Gabriel comes again to Joseph after Jesus is born and guides him out of Bethlehem through Egypt to avoid sure and certain death at the hands of Herod.
When Peter was in prison, an angel hit him on the side to wake him up. Still half-asleep, Peter watched an angel free him from his chains and then lead him out of his prison cell. (Acts 12:9) Was it a dream or was it an actual encounter with an angel? It seems not to matter as Peter is freed from his chains.
Later, Peter determined a difficult theological question about whether or not Gentiles could be followers of Christ through a series of dreams.
There are dreams that are prophecies and dreams that are a function of our psyche. Freud famously believed dreams represented a disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish. He studied the dreams of his patients because he believed that they provided the easiest road to understanding the unconscious activities of the mind.
Jung saw dreams as the psyche’s attempt to communicate important things to the individual. He valued them highly as a way of knowing what was really going on with his patients. Dreams, he said, are an important part of the development of the personality, a process that he called individuation.
We often use the word ‘dream’ to describe something “too good to be true” – a ‘pipe dream’ or fantasy. Some people talk about getting or having their “dream job” – their “dream home” – their “dream spouse”.
Dreams can be described as an aspiration or ideal. My immigrant grandparents and parents came to this country for an opportunity to live their share of The American Dream. My mother had a dream of “a perfect family of four children, two boys and two girls”. She got three girls and one boy – and a miscarriage and a stillbirth.
I sometimes wonder what she felt about that dream at the end of her life – and what she might think of what we and our children have become. Would she be disappointed, or is Paulo Coelho right when he said, “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”?
In this time of the waiting of Advent, what are you waiting for? What dreams are you carrying within you that are yet to be born? What do your dreams tell you about yourself? Your life? Your hopes? Your journey toward becoming more of who you are? Your authentic self?
If you have not yet read The Alchemist, I encourage you to consider spending some time this Advent to pick it up and read it. If you’ve read it before, consider reading it again. I think it’s a perfect book for Advent.
Here are a few quotes for tonight’s meditation.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
~Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.
“Intuition
is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.” ~
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.
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