Waking Dreams

I finished my paper last night around 3 AM or so.  I proceeded to the textbook reading and read till Matthew 23.  By this time, it was a little after 5 AM and I decided to turn in.  My alarm went off at about 7:36 and I proceeded into a cycle of jumping out of my bunk, snoozing, climbing back in, falling asleep, hearing the alarm, jumping....etc.  Only, at the time, in my head I thought I was in a religious discourse and I equated my alarm to the Mishnah or something.  Tiffany shouted at me to shut off my alarm and my incoherent self wanted to correct her about what was actually going on.

Breakfast in Bed

This morning, having fallen asleep at 2:30 AM, I slept in to 11 AM (getting a solid 8.5 hours of sleep). Dorene had been banging around in the kitchen, which had effected my last dream. Reaching consciousness, I recounted the dream to Dorene:

She had been making muffins in the kitchen and needed more or help, so I jumped out of bed and got out my muffin mix. I added milk and she insisted that I not make mini muffins. I complied, but was heartbroken. I then realized that the mix required egg, which was still in a one cup measuring cup. We then began showing each other senior pictures. One of mine had my face in front of the courtyard at Northwestern. I wondered how I took my senior picture there. As we were talking, Dorene made a statement implying that all of the Old Testament apocryphal books rhymed. I negated her comment and began to speak on the apocryphal books, then branched into the New Testament apocrypha and especially the Gospel of Thomas. I wanted to tell her about the 114th saying of "Jesus" in the gospel in my dream, but could not recall it. I looked to the sky to remember and saw two crows fighting....

Anyhow, while recounting the dream, Dorene brought me a powdered sugar covered waffle. She had tried to make me coffee but was confused about the coffee maker. I told her she had to press the button twice and in just a couple minutes she brought me a cup served up black. I began to drink it and soon got out of bed.

Dark Night and Sleep Tight

So, after my mini rant  last night, I fell fast asleep and so very deeply.  This time I dreamedthat I had applied through NWC for a teaching job in Chicago.  It was granted and all the people I worked with had very strange lifestyle habits.  I remember going to lunch downtown and them being out of sandwiches except for a string cheese sandwich.  So, I left.  As I was walking down the street some guy followed me from the cafe and started walking with me.  He said being around me made him hungry, hungry for spiritual things.  It was a strange dream.

I woke promptly a little before eight, assured myself I still had an hour to sleep and had fitful bouts of sleep afterwards which formed variations of the above dream.

Last night I dreamed I was back on campus.  While there I had some free time, so I wanted to visit a class that some friends had been talking about and that I was considering taking.  It met in a very high floor in Naz.  When I climbed near the level the class was at, the railings disappeared, and there was a break in the floor between the stair landing and the landing in front of the classroom door.  For some reason Shea was there and he extended a hand to help me over.

We entered the class and the prof was Mr. Bowman.  He looked at me confusedly and asked why I was there.  I sat down on the floor with the rest of the students and found myself cramped between someone I didn't know and Mr. Bowman, people adjusted their seating so I had more room.  The whole time I felt awkward and as if I shouldn't have come to this class.  Anyhow, the class touched on a lot of ethical, racial, and religious topics.  When it dismissed there was a sort of demonstration on the lawn and I just remember people bleeding.

Later in my dream, his class was meeting again, and this time I thought to call to see if I could sit in.  However, I had the impertinence to call an hour into the class.  He granted permission and I headed off.  Sometime around here I convinced myself that I needed to awake.

My dream last night directly correlated to my state of sleep or rather my state of consciousness in my sleep.  In the cases were I was dead to the world and would have been incapable to communicate with, my dream was cluttered spatially.  I was with people from campus on some sort of honors field trip.  During the period of my most sleepfulness, the dream was incoherent and the people and their belongings were affixed to each other.  As I woke further and attempted to regain deep sleep, the shallow state of my sleep made my dream more sensible and allowed people to lose physical proximity.

Anyhow, when I finally fully awoke, I realized I had been sleeping for nearly 12 hours straight.  During one of my previous wakings, I told myself that I deserved ridiculous amounts of sleep this night, for it will be my last of the like during break.

Last night my dream was very nerve-wracking as well as displaying me yet again in bad light.  In it I was back on campus, only the student center & those dorms were in the location of Riley and the dorms were more apartment-esque.  The dream began--or rather this part of the dream, I'm excluding the part about the trip to Costa Rica with some Latino man--with Dorene and I getting ready one morning.  We had decided to go to class together because we had the same one, Phy-ed.  I was ready and waiting on Dorene, only to realize I didn't know where my shoes were.  I put on some random shoes and was rushing Dorene.  We were going to catch a shuttle of sorts to the class that left at like 8 AM.  As I provoked her to hurry, I realized that it was 8:01.  I told her we had missed it and then yelled for her to hurry reminding her, "You know that I'm anal about these kinds of things" (keep in mind that the word "anal" is awkward, and I hate saying it).  The dream continued with the two of us leaving the dorms dressed ridiculously.  There was some yellow folded paper I was supposed to grab, but instead grabbed a white folded paper with no aid.

Dorene and I had no idea where this class was.  Her schedule said "SC428" and we searched out people to help us find this location.  I became frustrated because it couldn't be in the student center because there were only 3 floors in there.  The situation escalated as did my frustration with Dorene, and the situation worsened with disgruntled refusals to aid.

The dream didn't go much farther than here, but what a sad dream.  I was so driven by my need to be on time to my class that I was yelling at people constantly and talking down on everyone.  How disgusting--but I must remind myself that this was a dream, and I did not actually lash out on Dorene.  This is a reminder, however, to why I walk to classes, et cetera, alone.

Faith & Eric's New Apartment

Last night I had a very disturbing dream.  In it, I was with Faith and Eric in Indiana, with them as they viewed their new apartment for the first time.  From the outside, the place was not very impressive. It was a warehouse looking place, with everything floored with cement as well as their being many dark corners and ripped chain link fences.  We walked into a basement.  The place looked terrible.  There were no doubt leaks as well as cracked walls and low lighting.  The whole place was furnished but very despondent.  Apparently Heather was going to move in with them in the summer and work part time as an art teacher (I remember thinking in my dream, "Did Heather get a teaching degree?).

Later in the dream, they were looking for a religious speaker to come to the town.  He had many stipulations, however, and those qualifiers were very shady.  Eventually, he came to the place explosively and I was the only one around.  I was bolting the doors and he was nearly shaking them down.

Around this time I woke up, not wanting to find out what would happen next.  As I thought about the dream, I thought about the fear that was in me and the shame that I took over Faith and Eric's new dwelling.  It didn't seem good enough for them and the whole neighborhood was frightful.  But, as I continued to think about it, something clicked.

Around this time I woke up, unwanting to find out what would happen next.  As I thought about the dream, I thought about the fear that was in me and the shame that I took over Faith and Eric's new dwelling.  It didn't seem good enough for them and the whole neighborhood was frightful.  But, as I continued to think about it, something clicked.

While at Urbana and even before when I was reading The Irresistible Revolution, I began to think seriously about our responsibility to the widows and the poor. 

 26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.                             (From James 1)

So often, we live a life of selfish Christianity--as demonstrated by my last post where all I could think about were my crowded living conditions--where we think only about improving our own selves and morality.  First of all, we have no power in improving ourselves and have to trust God for any sort of remedy.  Second of all, if all Christianity is is a solo flight to morality, who would take it?  The way Christians are acting today really shows why people think that Jesus was just a very moral man instead of a revolutionary.

 14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
      Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.        (From James 2)
So many times, people will pull out this passage and say that it means that having faith means that we must be good.  However, the "faith by what I do" is prefaced by the context of taking care of the naked and the hungry.  One thing Urbana really refreshed to me is that as Christians, we are to be living as a body that takes care of itself as well as the others hurting in the world who have these needs.  This has been on my heart so much this semester.  I've been thinking of how I can help those in slum communities or those who are impoverished and I've found a few different places.  One is an arts program directed to the impoverished in Minneapolis.  The only problem with that is my lack of transport.  There is also the option of getting involved with Streetlight, a campus group who goes to the innercity and does work there (a program I am most likely going to get involved in), and the third is an idea that shoots into the future a little.  I am currently on the road to becoming an art educator.  This is a profession that can be done from many places and most recently, I have thought about moving to a slum community to teach.

Now this is where the dream comes in.  In my dream, I was repulsed and frightened for the majority of the time.  Upon waking, however, I discovered that I was repulsed and frightened by the very problem that my heart is being softened to; I was repulsed by the very thing I seek to remedy.  So, I don't know if that feeling verifies or goes against my current convictions.  Because shouldn't I desire to remedy that which repulses?

Anyhow, as you can see from above a lot of this thought came from James (the book, not Jim R.).  I would encourage you to read it; it's a meager five chapters and it's so packed with things that our church today has forgotten about.  Sigh.