During Lent we
have been exploring Spiritual Renewal in our Lenten Journey and exploring
different ways we can be open to how God is speaking to us and guiding us on
our journey. As we are each unique
children of God we are each going to experience different ways in which we can
connect with the divine so it is important that we experience different ways in
which people have found helpful.
In the first
three Sundays we explored Lectio Divino- Holy Reading, the Labyrinth which is a
moving prayer, and Centering Prayer with is silent prayer. Today I want to explore another way which has
an long tradition of being a way in which God speaks to us - but one like the
labyrinth was lost to our culture for many centuries. This is listening to God through our dreams.
In the Old
Testament lesson Isaiah gives us a vision of God’s kingdom. This is not specifically a dream but visions
can be considered a waking dream. Many
of the prophets of old received dreams and visions from God and shared those
experiences with their people.
Dreams as a
way of God speaking to the people of
God occur many times in the bible. Can anyone give me an example of God speaking
to people in dreams……..
One example
that I especially like is Jacob’s dream of a ladder between heaven and
earth. Let me read it to make it fresh
in your mind.
10Jacob left
Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.11He came to a certain place and stayed there
for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place,
he put it under his head and lay down in that place.12And he dreamed that there
was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the
angels of God were ascending and descending on it.13And the Lord stood beside
him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of
Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;14and
your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad
to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the
families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.15Know that
I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to
this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised
you.”
16Then Jacob
woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not
know it!”17And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is
none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”18So Jacob
rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head
and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.19He called that
place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.
I particularly
like this passage because it is about a dream and it describes the way dreams
work. We have angels – messengers from
God going between heaven and earth. It
is interesting that the angels are ascending first and then descending. My understanding of this is that Jacob was initially
ready to receive a message. He was
therefore prepared for receive the messages that came to his from heaven.
Although
dreams were recognized in biblical times and in the early church as a way God
communicated with people it became discounted and lost to us in modern
times. This happened for many
reasons. The church hierarchy did not
like the idea of people having direct communication with God. This bypassed the authority of the church
and the clergy wanted to maintain control over people’s understanding of God’s
message. In addition the enlightenment
began to discount anything that could not be measured and weighed and had a
material foundation. Dreams became what
can be called God’s forgotten language.
In the
modern era there began to be a recovered understanding of dreams as a way of receiving
messages about ourselves. Beginning with
the founders of depth psychology – Freud and Jung - a new understanding of
dreams and a rediscovery of the meaning of dreams has occurred which I want to
explore with you briefly.
How many of
you dream?..... I should probably have
asked how many remember their dreams.
Everyone dreams but not everyone remembers them. Everyone can with the right conditions. It is also important to understand how God
speaks to us through dreams. God can
speak to us as God did in the bible – with direct messages – these might be
called big dreams. God also speaks to us
through dreams giving us information about what we need to know about
ourselves. Dreams can help us become the
people that God intends us to be. Dreams
provide information when our lives are out of balance. They can point to how we can develop more
fully the part of ourselves aspect of ourselves that we have not acknowledged
even though they are part of who God creates us to be as unique individuals.
In
understanding dreams a good way to begin is to be aware that all the aspects of
the dream – from individuals you know and individuals you don’t know to
inanimate objects such as cars or houses are usually aspects of the
dreamer. It is important to know where
the energy is in the dream and where the movement is. In
remembering your dreams the most important aspect is having the intention of
remembering and paying attention. Have a
pen and paper available to record your dream. That is the next step – write it down and
consider the images in the dream. What
is your associating with them? Write
down any associating with the people or the other images.
Of course
there is much more to say on the approach but I will stop there. If you would like to find out more I would be
most interested to talking to you at another time. Finally it is important to understand that
all dreams come in the assistance of health and wholeness of the dreamer – even
ones that don’t seem that way. I will
close with the prayer we use in dream groups.
Holy Dream Maker, creator of all,
Be with us as we open our hearts and
minds
To the divine wisdom of dreams
you have blessed us with.
We thank you and honour you
who nurture, tend, and guide us,
You show us the way to health and
wholeness
not only in our waking hours
but even as we sleep. Amen
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