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,
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