Dreams, God’s Forgotten Language

                                                                         

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/

So You’ve Written a Book (Part 2)

My Adventures in Publishing (Continued)

I am continuing my account of publishing my first book,  The Ego and the Bible: Stories of Divinely Intended Ego.  I left the account at the point where I had decided it was not worthwhile trying to find a traditional publisher that would accept my book. 

The next step I took was to decide to see about hiring an editor.  My wife Lorna who worked as an editor wisely declined to undertake the task for the sake of marital harmony.  However she was very helpful throughout the process on advising on points of grammar and particularly on the final appearance and format of the cover.  I looked around on line and found a suitable candidate to do the editing.  After contact the candidate and doing due diligence with references and a contract I hired the individual.  Initially it was working out well but unfortunately for me and fortunately of her the person landed a full time job (with I presume benefits and a regular pay cheque) and she felt she was unable to continue with editing my manuscript.  I have no problem with this and she gave me a full refund of my initial deposit despite the initial work she had done.  However, I was in a quandary concerning how to proceed. 

I decided to try the self-publishing route and found a Canadian firm which had a long experience of this type of work.  I was in negotiation with them for a while and they seemed to be a good possibility but found price they quoted to be on the high side; in the range of three to four thousand dollars.  I was hesitant to proceed as I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend this amount on the project. 

About this time I received two pieces of good advice from colleagues who had experience with publishing books.  One, Bob Haden, who self-published his book, Unopened Letters from God, is the president of the Haden institute where I completed programs in dream groups and Spiritual Direction.  He advised that trying to go through traditional publishers was a rather a lost cause and would take years if you ever found one that would agree to publish you book.  This was an individual who was very successful with many contacts that would be interested in his book.  He also gave me good advice about the title.  I originally wanted to use the title ‘Divinely Intended Ego” which was a reference to a phase of Friedrick von Hugel that had resonated with me for many years; ‘divinely intended tension’.  He recommended that I find a more accessible title that would better describe the book—which I did using my original title as a subtitle.  The other person, who had an experience which I could more closely relate to, had a book published through the publishing arm of Amazon, CreativeSpace.  He highly recommended them and found the process and results to be very satisfactory. 

I investigated the possibility of using CreativeSpace primarily based on my colleague’s recommendation.  CreativeSpace is an U.S. based firm as part of Amazon, as is my colleague which gave me some hesitation as a Canadian.  However, after some discussion and consideration I decided to go with CreativeSpace.  The cost for similar services to the Canadian firm was substantially less at about $2,600—about $2,800 Canadian at the exchange at the rate that that time (note to Canadian, the exchange rate has fallen through the floor since then).  So I launched into the world of what used to be called derisively, vanity press but is becoming a creditable way of publishing in the modern age.

 I found the process of working with CreativeSpace overall to be very positive.  I worked with two editors who were professional and did a good job.  I had signed up for a package deal which included two rounds of editing with proofs provided as well a customs design for the cover.  It also included writing of an introductory blurb for marketing and making the book available through Amazon.  Not everything was perfect of course.  I had some difficulty getting used to the editing system where I would have to accept or reject every change proposed by the editors down to every jot and tittle and comma and Em Dash.  This was a long labourious process for someone who is not detailed oriented but is of course necessary to have a good end product.  One assumption one of the editors made was to put commentary on the biblical passages in the past tense without checking with me.  I had put some in present and some in past in my initial manuscript.  After some consideration I decided to go with present tense and had to manually change the manuscript to reflect that.  This was a rather extensive process, however, I am glad I made that decision.

CreativeSpace was very responsive to my questions and issues that I raised by email.  There overall system is quite processional and comprehensive.  However, I discovered that my assumption that the book would automatically be available on Amazon.ca was not correct.  This is a drawback for a Canadian as it makes it more difficult for Canadians to order copies with exchange and duties and shipping.  I don’t believe Amazon.com offers free shipping to Canada whereas Amazon.ca does. However, I have recently discovered that my book is available through Amazon.ca.  However, it is not ‘in stock’ and will probably take longer to obtain through that route.

Finally I have successfully made the book available in Kindle format which was more difficult than I had anticipated.  Kindle is an Amazon company.  However, it doesn’t happen automatically through CreativeSpace.  I had difficulty getting the files into a format that Kindle would accept which was surprisingly not provided by CreativeSpace.  However, the people at CreativeSpace and Kindle were helpful and I was eventually successful without becoming too frustrated which is an accomplishment for a non-computer nerd such as I. 

In conclusion, the process was worth it whether or not I make a profit in the process (perhaps there is a bit of vanity or ego in it).  However, it was a real thrill when my copies of the book arrived and I open the box two days before Christmas.

 

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

 

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