When I was younger, you could always tell what was trendy at my school by what kinds of library books were missing from the shelves at a given time. I'm not sure what it was, but the reading awareness program in my school district was highly effective. We fought over who got to check out the "cool book" this week. Granted, half of my 4th grade year, I went book-less because I made the cardinal sin of losing a library book. Fortunately, I recovered from this trauma and was eventually able to wrestle for the right to claim one of the cool books again before moving on to middle school.
One of the trends I do remember is when we all discovered the books about interpreting your dreams. We always skipped the beginnings of these books; the authors would always go on some 200 page diatribe about the history of dream interpretations, how they tie in to spirituality, and whatever hocus pocus was trendy at the time the author was writing (usually sometime in the 60's). The real treasure trove was at the end, where there would be a list of things that might appear in your dreams, and what each thing means. There was a point where we discovered some clever author completely did away with the preface and just jumped straight to the list, hence creating a comprehensive dream dictionary.
A few lucky people would manage to race to the shelves and snag these books to check out for the week, and they became the official dream gurus at the lunch table. We'd all discuss the dreams we'd had that night - whether real or made-up - and they would consult their various dream interpretation dictionaries, giving us valuable insight into our inner psyches. Or just providing fodder for us to make fun of each other even more than usual.
My dream from last night had a few odd components to it, from dreaming that I was actually taking sleeping pills (isn't that a bit redundant?), to my childhood home, to wolves, and even a sloth (yes, the actual animal, not a lazy person). I decided to check it out with the first legitimate-looking dream dictionary I was able to locate via Google:
Sleeping pill: Choosing to be ignorant about a situation, or deciding to make a fresh new start
Childhood home: Desires for building a family; unfinished feelings; outdated thinking
Peephole: Looking through a peephole in a dream suggests narrow perspectives and requiring facts to make an informed decision, or a non-reciprocating situation
Nightgown: Acknowledging aspects of yourself you were previously uncomfortable about
Wolf: Survival, beauty, solitude, mystery, self-confidence, pride; being a loner; aggression or sneakiness, an uncontrollable situation
Sloth: Passivity in a situation; need to be assertive; gentleness, laziness, lack of ambition
Airport: Births and deaths; desire for freedom, ambition, and hopes
Do you think dreams have meaning? Have you ever incorporated your dreams into your writing? Are your dreams as incoherent as mine? Or, check out the dream dictionary and post some of your interesting interpretations from a recent dream in the comments!
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Spiritual Musings: The Throw-Away Pile
I've been attending my church for about 3 years now - ever since my husband and I selected it to be the place we ended up getting married. I've always been Christian, except for a brief stint from ages 12 to 15 where I decided I was into wicca, and I was feeling pretty adrift because I hadn't found a church home since I'd moved to the Chicagoland area a few years beforehand. I'm not 100% sure what drew me to this church in particular - I wasn't immediately welcomed with open arms, and it actually took a while before people would start coming up to me and saying hello. I was on my own, because my husband was bar tending at the time and would be up until 4am on Saturday nights, leaving me to venture out on my own on Sunday mornings. And I'm painfully shy, so it was hard for me to take that first step and walk up and say hello to someone. But I toughed it out for a few months, going and sitting alone, awkwardly smiling at people during the greeting of peace.
After several months, a turning point happened. Someone had heard me singing along with the music and told the band about it, and the guitarist approached me about singing with them at the contemporary services. I've been singing with them ever since, and it's my favorite part of being a member of the congregation there. However, my church is facing some trouble. Our congregation is shrinking, and attendance is down very low from where it was just a few years ago. Our congregation is also aging; my husband and I are some of the youngest people there (other than the youth group, which is also very small). We are going through some tough times, because fewer millenials are attending church, and those that are do not seem to be attracted to us.
In this time of difficulty, our pastor made a very inspiring series of sermons about Joseph that is not only applicable to my church's struggles, but to several personal ones as well, which have all led me back to writing. If you don't know the story of Joseph, I'll summarize: Joseph was one of many sons of Jacob, and he was Jacob's favorite. Even though he was the second-youngest out of 12 brothers, Jacob intended for Joseph to be his heir. Joseph was also blessed with the ability to interpret dreams, and whatever he interpreted, came true. He arrogantly told his brothers about his predictions that he would one day rise above all of them. All of this compounded to make his brothers very jealous, and they ended up secretly selling Joseph into slavery. He was later falsely accused of attempting to rape his master's wife, and ultimately ended up in prison, where he was forgotten for many years - ending up on the "throw-away pile."
Throughout all of these struggles, Joseph still retained his ability to interpret dreams. But these humbling experiences had an effect on him. When he finally emerged from prison at the behest of the pharaoh to interpret a dream (this one foretelling famine), he knew: his gift was not his ability to interpret dreams, but that God worked through him to interpret the dreams. All he was, he owed to God. But this realization never would have happened if he had not suffered first - if God had not ground the arrogance out of Joseph, inspiring humility and the realization that he needed to let God lead and not his own arrogance. As my pastor put it, Joseph needed to be in the throw-away pile for a time in order to become what God needed him to be (later, saving his people from the famine).
My church is currently in the throw-away pile. I am currently in the throw-away pile. We're feeling abused, tired, down-trodden, and a little hopeless sometimes. I'm in a job that I struggle with on a daily basis. My church is trying to find a new identity so it can remain relevant to young generations. But I don't think I can become the writer I want to be, or the person I want to be, without first learning the empathy I'm learning right now. And my church can't be the loving example of God's family that it should be without first coming to the painful realization that we're shrinking, and if we don't do something different to help young people find the answers they are looking for in life, we may disappear.
Even though this seems a little depressing, it isn't. Change and growth is always painful, but I feel lucky that I was able to be in the pews on Sunday and hear something that made me realize it has a purpose.
After several months, a turning point happened. Someone had heard me singing along with the music and told the band about it, and the guitarist approached me about singing with them at the contemporary services. I've been singing with them ever since, and it's my favorite part of being a member of the congregation there. However, my church is facing some trouble. Our congregation is shrinking, and attendance is down very low from where it was just a few years ago. Our congregation is also aging; my husband and I are some of the youngest people there (other than the youth group, which is also very small). We are going through some tough times, because fewer millenials are attending church, and those that are do not seem to be attracted to us.
In this time of difficulty, our pastor made a very inspiring series of sermons about Joseph that is not only applicable to my church's struggles, but to several personal ones as well, which have all led me back to writing. If you don't know the story of Joseph, I'll summarize: Joseph was one of many sons of Jacob, and he was Jacob's favorite. Even though he was the second-youngest out of 12 brothers, Jacob intended for Joseph to be his heir. Joseph was also blessed with the ability to interpret dreams, and whatever he interpreted, came true. He arrogantly told his brothers about his predictions that he would one day rise above all of them. All of this compounded to make his brothers very jealous, and they ended up secretly selling Joseph into slavery. He was later falsely accused of attempting to rape his master's wife, and ultimately ended up in prison, where he was forgotten for many years - ending up on the "throw-away pile."
Throughout all of these struggles, Joseph still retained his ability to interpret dreams. But these humbling experiences had an effect on him. When he finally emerged from prison at the behest of the pharaoh to interpret a dream (this one foretelling famine), he knew: his gift was not his ability to interpret dreams, but that God worked through him to interpret the dreams. All he was, he owed to God. But this realization never would have happened if he had not suffered first - if God had not ground the arrogance out of Joseph, inspiring humility and the realization that he needed to let God lead and not his own arrogance. As my pastor put it, Joseph needed to be in the throw-away pile for a time in order to become what God needed him to be (later, saving his people from the famine).
My church is currently in the throw-away pile. I am currently in the throw-away pile. We're feeling abused, tired, down-trodden, and a little hopeless sometimes. I'm in a job that I struggle with on a daily basis. My church is trying to find a new identity so it can remain relevant to young generations. But I don't think I can become the writer I want to be, or the person I want to be, without first learning the empathy I'm learning right now. And my church can't be the loving example of God's family that it should be without first coming to the painful realization that we're shrinking, and if we don't do something different to help young people find the answers they are looking for in life, we may disappear.
Even though this seems a little depressing, it isn't. Change and growth is always painful, but I feel lucky that I was able to be in the pews on Sunday and hear something that made me realize it has a purpose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)