Monday, January 15, 2007

church life

I was at a church picnic. To prepare for it, I had been assigned the work of gathering potatoes. These potatoes were to be cooked, mashed and served. The potatoes, which had been damaged by snow, were in a garden off a main highway. The highway department had created a detour by plowing out an area near the garden. At the garden I encountered bears, who were already there digging them up and eating them. I was afraid to harvest. So, I didn’t. I went back to the picnic to tell the man who had offered to cook them that I was afraid to go near the bears.

I looked around the picnicking grounds, which were in a wooded area in the middle of the city at Hamm’s Hill. There were babies everywhere. They were in the crawling stage. They were unattended and the feces they were losing from their diapers lay everywhere. The food was set up carnival style. Vendors sold it in booths like the state fair. Everything seemed to be backwards and chaotic. I wondered, “Why did a man cook and a woman gather in a dangerous place? Why wasn’t there anyone tending to the babies? Why was the food set up carnival style with people getting chicken from one booth, walking to another booth for mashed potatoes, another for gravy, etc?”

Later, I was sitting inside a building with others who were watching videos in a theatre area of the church. Children and babies were again playing everywhere. A very friendly, interesting man sat down next to me. We talked and watched the video. Bears appeared on the video screen. They were eating potatoes. The man told me not to be afraid of bears. When I looked at him to comment, he morphed into a bear (a superficially friendly bear) and then morphed back again.

This dream was had by a friend of mine and is dedicated to Michelle, who is brave enough to share a dream that “felt” significant. It’s risky to share dreams and attribute meaning to them. Previously, I’ve been ambiguous mostly—calling them parables. It gets close to intellectual suicide. But I suppose, if challenged, I would just argue my point in uber-intellectual cant.

As for these dreams, I find them much more aggressive in their critique of the church than, say, the Church Infiltrator Series below. This one is actually directly applicable to a specific church. Keep checking up on more infiltrators. I’m working on them.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

P. ~

Thanks for the dedication. So why on earth could this jeprodize your position with your employer?
Is it kind of a don't ask don't tell thing? I mean if someone were to act upon a dream and its intrepretation wouldn't one do so weather anyone else knew or not.

espíritu paz said...

No it’s not like my job is in jeopardy. I’m just a low level gopher. More like this sort of talk/dappling may challenge my reputation in intellectual credibility too early. The way I see it. One has to work the balance between innovative ideas and newness and charm and compelling persuasion, such that charm and persuasion will gain you a large audience. Then when one is at the pinnacle of his/her “career” only then can you use the influence to bring out the full agenda and then you will be marched to your crucifixion. Yet crucifixion is not the end, it is the new beginning. And your audience will be watching.

As for the suggestion of don’t ask don’t tell—that only works when your concern is only for yourself. Take the Joseph in Egypt story—he discerns that there will be a famine; he persuades the Pharaoh that this will come true and prepares an entire nation for it. I’ll hold off on the personal stories. They were enough to make a hard core scientist into a mystic.

Michelle said...

This sounds similar to what my prof. Niomi Shuman said about becoming a ten year professor. "You say whatever they want to hear until 10 year. Then the freedom begins." But rings ture more for your referance to personal gain.
So then all this begs a questions:
1. Do you feel on the cuff of the pinnacle?
I also have a desire to be more than a general admission ticket holder. Sitting back and observing has never been my style.