"By God's grace, I will strive mightily against sin and will do deeds of love and mercy." So goes one of the disciplines that I recite with my fellow spiritual formation group friends weekly at our meetings. It's easily said, but since I'm getting more and more into this reflection/dream analysis stuff, this "sin (and deeds of love and mercy)" has been sitting prominently in my head for a week or so.....

Sin - well, I know I must have it when I can't come up with a description of it!!! How about I cross against the "don't walk" sign occasionally? OR, I wrote my name once on the bidding line of a silent auction sheet 2 seconds after the bidding was closed. (That piece of art still bothers me in the house.) I intellectually and logically (oops there's logic from one of my earlier posts - "the understanding of logic does not necessarily guarantee the correct use of it":)??) grasp "that sinning is anything that lures me away from God."

So, upon reflection(s) I cannot/or will not - actually NAME the sin(s)here, I just think back to a time in my life where I feel sin was present - although as Satan would have it, it didn't feel so much like sin as like unadulterated fun and pleasure (a touch of St. Augustine's thought process I suspect) ......again, I have spent some time in reflection about that portion of my life and its possible/probable connection to sin, revisiting it, drawn back to the reflection even while busy with unrelated tasks.

So, here's where I think the reflection and the dreaming and the rubber hits the road part comes in. In a post last week, I recalled a recent, recurring dream - a pleasant non-threatening dream, as many of my dreams turn out to be. But my usual sweet dream, this week turned into a doozey of a nightmare - awful, bloody, scary dream, filled with persons from my past appearing in strange configurations changing the fun of the time into a really awful mess. I didn't awaken during the dream, only recalled it the next day.

Upon yet still more reflection, I believe that dream was my sin attempting to pass from my subconscious into my conscious mind. I am surprised at my recognition/deduction; I believe the dream was a purging; I pray it was forgiveness. I'm accepting that now as the interpretation - if you have other thoughts, please feel free to share with me.

Yesterday, Lucy wrote about a recent dream and inquired if any of us had thoughts about dreams. Coincidentally, I am reading a book entitled, DREAMS - God's Forgotten Language Originally published 20 years ago, in revised copies now, Mr. Sanford explores the psychological and spiritual significance of dreams, drawing on the work of C.G. Jung to show how dreams can help us find healing and wholeness and reconnect us to a living spiritual world.

Now that's a lot to expect from a little 184 page book, but I have been fascinated to read Mr. Sanford's theories and apply some of them to my own dreams.

First of all, I dream a lot! Have for years. My dreams are often quite transparent, or so they seem to me. Often, very often, they relate to issues of control - my control:)

Such as the dream in which my mother is driving the car and I inform her she cannot drive any more. She argues vociferously that she is perfectly capable of handling a vehicle, all the time driving directly, or almost directly into a lake that is near her home. I, in the dream, miraculously jump from the back seat to the front and take over the wheel.

This dream, no doubt, would make perfect sense to my spouse or my siblings, for as my mother aged and entered into the world of dementia she and I had a phone conversation with me telling her she could no longer drive the car, we were taking the keys, etc., with her arguing all of the time that she was perfectly capable of driving and would just go get herself another car. End result, the car keys were taken away from her, there was no more discussion about her driving and I was in control the decision making - much to my relief!

I have for years had dreams of being lost, desperately trying to figure out where I am and how to return to a safe place. The dream finds me more and more lost and in my efforts to escape from "something" I find the spaces I choose to follow becoming smaller and smaller, claustrophobic, and life-threatening. Want to take that one on?
I have analyzed it myself many times.....I am happy to say that I haven't had that dream in a long time!

Another recurring dream in the last 6 months has been that of the company from which I will retire in just a couple of months. I dream I am with the family that owns the company and we're all very sad - there is a funeral going on but I do not recognize whose funeral it is......well, of course, it is my job's funeral. I have been working for this company for 27 years, in close contact with the founding family in many of my positions. Although, I don't feel idol worship of them (at least I don't think I do)I believe the dreams have been a definite time for mourning that lost part of my life.

In the last couple of weeks, after returning from a "final" business trip with several of my closest colleagues, I had a wonderful releasing dream in which I am back in my office, chaos all around, and another friend is there saying to me - "look what a mess they're making, let's get out of here!" Free at last:)? I think so.

So, yes, I dream a lot. My dream this week has been of a small boy in our church parish who keeps trying to emerge from a crowd and get on the bus without his parents. I see him, ask him what he is doing and he just smiles and steps on to the first step, whereupon I grab him and go in search of his mom! I want this to be a happy dream ending - it feels a little strange to me. Although even as I write this post, I recognize that in seeing this child in church the last couple of weeks, I have been taken back at his maturity - he seems no longer a baby - aha - that may be it again. I cannot stop time, I am not in control and certainly not in control of Tommy's leaving babyhood into childhood - I don't have to find his mother - she already knows.

Yep, again, I dream a lot. This category may grow - it feels like a happy category to follow right now:)