Dreams, God's Forgotten language

For those of you who noticed and may be wondering why I did not send out an edition of the News and Views last week, there were a few things which got in my way.  The main one is that I was poorly adjusted―in a chiropractic sense of the meaning.  My I woke up one morning with a pain in the neck which progressively got worse before I could see my chiropractor.  I subsequently developed a frozen left shoulder which I am dealing with.  I will be seeing a physiotherapist today and see how it goes from there. 

Two weekends’ ago Lorna and I were leading a workshop at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Alliston.  The title of the workshop was Dream, God’s Forgotten Language.  The goal was to introduce the participants to an approach to working with dreams as a way that God is speaking to us today. The workshop was held on Friday night and Saturday and I preached at the Sunday worship services.  A copy of the sermon is attached.

 I was trained to facilitate dream groups through the Haden Institute and Lorna and I have led a number of workshops to introduce the approach to people.  We are currently involved in an ongoing dream group at Elmwood Presbyterian Church in London, Ontario which came out of a workshop we held there a few years ago.  We are also involved in a dream group that meets by Skype which has recently been joined by a member who is based in Abu Dhabi. 

The title of the workshop is based on a book by the same title written by John Sanford, an Episcopal priest.  As the title suggests we need to learn or relearn how God is speaking to us in our dreams.  As shown in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, the people of the bible understood very clearly that God spoke to them in dreams and they treated them that way.  However, for many reasons, today dreams are generally not understood as being from God or even having much significance in our post-modern culture.  The post-modern approach prejudices the scientific method which requires proof to be weighted and measured.  The approach we use draws on the work of Carl Jung which, along with Sigmund Freud, reclaimed the importance of dreams in the inner life of individuals.  This approach is enhanced by a theological understanding that dream help us to become the people that God intends us to be.

As a teaser on the process used let me give a brief description which I hope will give you some idea of how the process works:

·         One of the group members presents that he/she has had by reading it or reciting it from memory. 

·         The group members clarify the dream content to obtain as clear as possible a picture of the dream content.

·         The dreamer gives the dream to the group and withdraws from the activity but listens to the comments of the group members.

·         The group members give their associations to the dream content prefacing their remarks with the phrase, “if it were my dream” or “in my dream e.g. “if it were my dream the 12-year-old boy in the dream would represent something that happened to me 12 years ago.”

·         Once the associations are complete the dreamer is invited back into the group as given the opportunity to share their experience hearing the associations of the group.

·         The other group members are given the opportunity to comment on their experience working with the dream.

In the process, the dreamer will often, but not always, hear something which is relevant to their life and enhances the meaning of the dream for them.  This will often be experienced by an “aha” realization of the message in the dream for them.  It is a rule that only the dreamer can decide if anything said in the group is meaningful for them.

Aha

You may be saying to yourself, “well, that is very interesting, but what is that to do with God speaking to the dreamer”?  When you work with your dreams you will begin to understand that they are giving you information about where your life is on the path that God intends and where you have gone off course.  Above all, it reveals much of the person God created what you are not conscious of or have chosen not to acknowledge. 

I hope that this very brief introduction has given you a sense of how dreams can help you.  Indeed, one of the rules of this dream work is that all dreams are sent by God in aid of the health and wholeness of the dreamer. 

Blessings on you journey,

The Changing Image of Jesus

I have had a bit of a hiatus in writing my post.  Lorna and I spent a week (five days actually) at the Dream & Spirituality Conference at the Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina.  After that we went across country to the East coast with our destination being our cottage in PEI where we are now.  We had a bit of a delay getting on-line as the internet wasn’t working and did not cooperate until last night. 

We have attended the Dream Conference for many years beginning in 2005.  We missed that last two years as we were involved with the Spiritual Direction Program offered by the Haden Institute which also runs the Dream Conference.   There is a lot I could write about (and perhaps will later) that has happened in the last few weeks but I want to reflect on the image of Jesus which we encountered on our way to the Conference. 

One of the landmarks on our trip to Kanuga over the years has been a giant statue of Jesus at the Solid Rock Church near Cincinnati, Ohio on the I-75 interstate.   This amazing edifice was (according to my source on the Internet) 52 feet high.  It was named the “Touchdown Jesus” due to its arms being raised triumphantly over its head as Jesus bursts from the ground—not the usual depiction of Jesus emerging from the tomb.  The 51 feet only cover the upper half of the figure which made if even more impressive.  A few years ago we had the interesting news that the statue had been destroyed by fire caused by a lightning strike.  A picture of the statue is below and will give you an idea of the figure if not the truly impressive dimensions. 

I projected a lot on that image of Jesus and what it might have meant for the understanding of Jesus by the people that attended that church.  I must confess I was not too impressed by my impression about this Jesus. Consequently, I was somewhat pleased with the idea that God would not have been too impressed either and perhaps was making that known through the event that destroyed it.  However, I also know that we are treading on dangerous ground when we impute God’s will to natural events that match our theology.  I think it might be more a case of oversight of perhaps hubris that the creators of the statue did not include a lightning rod in the creation.  The last year or two that we drove to Kanuga we were interested (and perhaps a little disappointed) in the lack of a statue at the church.  However, this year we were pleasantly surprized when we were greeted with a new statue at the church which was not quite as impressive in size and of a very different Jesus. This statue has been dubbed the “Hug Me Jesus” statue on the internet.  It is a full body image of Jesus with his arms outstretched in a position seems to say, “Come unto me”.  Below is a picture I found easily on the internet.  It is interesting to note that they appear to have included a lightning rod in this statue.                    

It is said that we create not only God but the second person of the Trinity in our own image.  Jesus was pictured in Western-European nations as blond haired and blue eyes for many years, if not centuries.  I wonder if the change in the new portrayal of Jesus by the Solid Rock Church reflects a change in the understanding by those Christians at the Solid Rock Church of who Jesus is to them.

I think it is wise for each of us to reflect on the internal image of Jesus that we each have and how it reflects on our understanding of who we are called to be as Christians.  Blessings

Touchdown Jesus

 Hug Me Jesus 

So You’ve Written a Book (Part 1)

My Adventures in Publishing

I have recently had my first book, The Ego and the Bible: Stories of Divinely Intended Ego, published.  I thought I would write about my experience as a way of sharing the experience as well as giving my thought is some kind of perspective.

It has been a process that has been both less and more involved that I had anticipated.  I had not given much thought to getting the book published when I began writing it so I guess I didn’t really anticipate much about it.   On reflection I don’t think I had any particular thoughts about this other than I would start to investigate the publishing process once I had the book written.  I could say that writing was what really mattered and that I had no real desire one way or another for it actually being published.  However, that is not the real truth as I have wanted to have a book or books in print for quite some time.  It was however, a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ idea rather than something I had actively pursued to this point.

After my most recent retirement—this one from parish ministry—I thought one of my retirement projects would be to actually work at writing a book.  I had a few ideas that didn’t develop into anything specific until the idea that resulted in my book began to take shape.  I was asked recently how I come up with the idea and I must admit my memory is rather fuzzy on this point.  The best I can say is that it didn’t come as a ‘road to Damascus’ experience in a flash of inspiration,  It was more of a process which brought together two of my abiding interests; the bible as the inspired word of God, and the psychology of Carl Jung.  In my reflecting on my own life and studies in Spiritual Direction I have become more and more convinced that the ego is both the greatest gift of God to humankind.  However, it is also the greatest challenge (I won’t say curse even if it sometimes seems that way).  The idea or concept began to come together that, if the bible is comprised, in part, of stories of God’s influence and inspiration for people—which I believe it is—then the stories would be influenced to a lessor or greater extent by the egos of the people in those stories.   I understand egos to be an integral part of people being created in God’s image. 

All this is by way of context for my purpose—which is to write about the process in getting my book published.   One I felt the manuscript was in shape to begin the publishing process. I began to research publishers that might be interested.  I checked the books that were in my bookcases that were of similar focus to see who had published them.  Once I had a list I started to check them out on line and discovered that, I can safely say, all of them wanted the author to do a lot of things which I guess I had considered would be done by the publisher e.g. do a lot of initial editing and come up with a detailed marketing plan.  As editing and marketing are not my strengths, as people who know me will attest, I was rather discouraged.  However, I persevered and considered what I might do in this area.  I got together the details of what one publisher required and sent off the material to what seemed like a good possibility—and waited a bit.  Patience is a virtue.  However, a response did not come out of that void.   I will end the account here and continue the rest of the story in Part 2. 

Readers of my sermon might enjoy my book The Ego and The Bible.  It is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Bible-Stories-Divinely-Intended/dp/1500759155/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419870942&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Ego+and+the+Bible

 It is also available on Amazon.ca

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=THe%20Ego%20and%20the%20Bible%20