Jacob’s Dream
Many of you will know that I hold dreams to be very
important in my life and as a phenomenon which is universal in people’s experience. To be clear, I am speaking of dreams which people
experience in their sleep and not the hopes that people might have for their
lives – although night dreams can express that aspect of people’s lives.
In this modern age, particularly in the scientific age,
dreams have not been given much credence.
They were and often are dismissed as being a mechanical process which,
at best, was a way for the brain to process and clear out the detritus of the previous
days’ activity. Historically, however,
this was not the case. Dreams were understood
to be a way in which God, or gods, or demons communicated with people. Indeed, dreams play a significant role for Christians
and Jews in the way that God communicated with people of the Bible as the shown
by the illustration of Jacob’s dream above.
We Christians are about to enter the season of Advent which
is the preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christ
child. The Christmas story is an embarrassment
of riches when it comes to the role that dreams as messages from God to the
Holy family - from the annunciation to the dubious Mary that she would bear the
son the God and the announcement of that miracle to her shocked husband to be. There were many other divine dreams such the warning
to the wise men not to return to the tell the despicable king Herod of the birth. That is just a taste of the riches of the Christmas
story from the perspective of how dreams are used to communicate divine
messages to people.
One of the challenges which we face today is to understand
how God is speaking to us in dreams. Modern
people, for the most part, now longer understand what God is telling us in our
dreams. In effect, we no longer know the
language of dreams. I have been involved,
for many years, in helping people understand how to do this through the insights
and inspiration of Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist. Along with my wife Lorna and others we will
be offering an introduction in how to work with our dreams to understand them
as a way in which God speaks to us. We
will be holding a workshop at the end of this coming January. It will be offered via Zoom which has the challenge
of new (to us) technology but also the advantage that it can be accessed regardless
of the participants’ location. The
information of the workshop is provided below.
Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language
Friday Jan 29, 2021 (7:30 pm – 9:00 pm)
Saturday Jan 30, 2021 (9:30 am – 4:30 pm)
Cost $40
Join
us on Zoom and explore the language of dreams.
This workshop will offer opportunities to an approach to understanding
our dreams as one of the ways that God speaks to us. Within a Christian context, participants will
learn about dream interpretation using the concepts of Carl Jung and have
opportunities to explore their own dreams as well as working with the dreams of
others in a group context.
This workshop will offer opportunities for those who are new
to Jung’s approach to working with dreams as well as those who are familiar with
the concepts and practice of Jungian dream work.
Tickets and information ― https://dreamworkcanada.squarespace.com/
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