This past weekend
I was helping to lead a workshop on dreams.
The workshop took place in Toronto at the Danforth Mennonite
Church. As the title of the workshop - Dreams,
God’s Forgotten Language – indicates in our approach to dreams, we understand
dreams as a way that God speaks to us. This
was the first event of a new group which has been established to promote this
understanding of dreams – Dreamwork Canada https://dreamworkcanada.squarespace.com/.
The workshop was
a great success thanks to the work of all the members of the
leadership/planning team; Mary Sanderson. Betty Puricelli, Mary Klein
and John Epp as well as me. This was an
ecumenical effort comprised of members of the United Church, Mennonite and
Anglican denominations. We will have a return engagement on April 24th
and 25th of next year at the same location. All in all, it was a rewarding time with
great participation by those in attendance who were very enthusiastic and
receptive to the approach to understanding dreams which can sometimes - perhaps
I should say often – be rather less than clear to the logical part of our
brains.
In the past ten
years or so I have done quite of few of these workshops after completing a
program on facilitating dream groups at the Haden Institute. Many of these have
been with my wife, Lorna Harris. Lorna
was attending the birthday party for our Granddaughter. Lorna and I will be offering a one-day event
on November 16th at St. John’s by the Lake Anglican Church in Grand
Bend Ontario. If you are interested in
being involved please contact Lisa Gumb 519-238-6600 or lgumb@hay.net.
The approach to
dreams that we share in our workshops utilizes the concepts of Carl Jung. However, as I noted above, dreams are a way
in which God has always communicated with us.
God did so from the beginning of scripture with many accounts of people
receiving divine messages in dreams. God
continues to do so today.
One of the
principles of working with dreams that dreams come in the service of health and
wholeness of the dreamer and the world.
This is one of the guiding principles that informs my approach and
appreciation of dreams. I believe,
despite what is often misunderstood about God’s desire and intention for us,
God does not desire our perfection. God
desires our health and wholeness and for us to become as fully as possible the
people God created us to be.
Coincidentally –
if you believe in coincidences – the November issue of the Anglican Journal
arrived in my mail box this morning - that is my snail mail box. It contained an article by our new Primate
Archbishop Linda Nicholls – that is the head of the Anglican Church of Canada
and not the other kind of primate.
Archbishop Linda was writing about What it means to be whole. She writes, speaking of efforts to set up
a healing centre:
One of our
first tasks was to define what it means to be whole - to be healed. This is actually more difficult than it
seems. Are we ever fully healed and
well? There always seems to be some
aspect of our life that is in pain, distressed or unbalanced!
I could not agree
more – which is very fortunate as I wouldn’t want to have a serious
disagreement with my Archbishop. Dreams
can be of great assistance in guiding us on that journey to health and
wholeness.
May each of us
have dreams which bless us on our journey.
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