Dream
Dreams are nutty things, generally forgotten upon awakening. Somewhere not long ago, when I had in mind to offer a Dream Group at church -- (I offered a Grief Support Group instead, and it led to close friendship with a man named Don, whose grief was overwhelming because his losses were overwhelming, and who himself is the only person I’ve ever known who died of a broken heart, I think of him often. We were the same age, his November birthday the same as my son Joe) -- I read that dreams are often caused by things that were on my mind the previous day. That may be so, I seldom remember my dreams. But I’ve not discerned that to be the case with the dreams that stick with me -- well, once, with a dream in 2008 that’s still with me, something I’d noticed during the day ignited memories and a long, vivid dream. But the dream I had within the last hour (it’s 3:43 at the moment) doesn’t seem related to anything at all. In my dream I visited Capernaum. Mind, I have no thought of going there, nor wish to go. It’s the little seaside village where Jesus made his home as an adult, maybe from late adolescence, maybe after Joseph had died and he moved there from Nazareth with his mother and brothers and sisters? Maybe Mary had relatives there, maybe the family had visited cousins there when he was growing up. Maybe he just loved living by the sea, I can envision that, it’s almost the center of my own being. It was there in Capernaum that Jesus called Peter and Andrew, James and John, who were fishermen, it's a small town and I think they were already friends.
The mind wanders at will, especially in dreams, doesn’t it, and we aren’t “guilty,” we don’t have to answer to anyone for our dreams, do we, not even to ourselves. So anyway, Linda and I were at Capernaum. Totally surrounded by a wall in my dream, a high wall once you got inside, and made into a tourist attraction. There was the obligatory gift shop, and there were the public restrooms (which likely is what sponsored the dream in the first place, as about one o’clock I’d come to consciousness, refused to get up, turned over and gone back to sleep instead) And the ruins of the village proper. It’s as close to the sea as my balcony porch. There are lots of pictures of Capernaum online, this
In my dream it was quite moving to walk round the ruins of the village where Jesus actually lived and walked after relocating from Nazareth. I’ll bet he met Mary there. She was from Magdala, just a few miles down the coast. I’ll bet they met one summer as teenagers when she and her family came up by boat to visit cousins. I'll bet they were summer sweethearts. I’ll bet they walked on the beach together, holding hands and making eyes at each other. I think she was in love with him, maybe he with her. I wonder what happened with their dreams. I know she was in Jerusalem with him for that last Passover, and they were together again on Easter (John 20:1-17). In our liturgy we have a prayer (our prayers express our theology, what we believe about God) that says Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that they may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. I wonder if that happened in their dream.
W