A Dream

I’m on a rafting trip with some friends. It’s dusk and I decide to go for a quick run by myself. As I’m drifting along, I hear some big splashes. The way I would say the sound is “baloosh.” At first I think it’s fish jumping. Then I realize someone has thrown large rocks at me from the bank. I can’t see who it is. This both scares and angers me.

I decide I need to report this. So I start to head to the bank. The river is flowing swift, maybe even rapids, I can’t remember. But I’m having a difficult time landing the raft, so I decide to jump from the raft to the shore. That’s what I do. When I get to the shore, I realize that my raft is still headed down stream, headed for the ocean eventually. This is going from bad to worse.

I hurry to a phone booth, but don’t know who to call. 911 seems a bit extreme, so I try to figure out how to call the local police, but I can’t find the number in the phonebook.

So I go to a local establishment, seems like a restaurant or pub. I have a hard time getting people’s attention and help. I see someone (male) that is in a uniform that has “security” on it. I head down some stairs to a lower level where that person was. I have to wait in some line to get directions to security. The person giving directions points behind her to where I need to go to security. I go to a door and open it and stick my head into a conference room that has a bunch of business people in a meeting. No extra seats and they all look at me like I’m interrupting. Obviously the wrong room. Go back and find out I went passed the right door. When I go to the right door I open it to find three women in a small, narrow room, no windows, and they all look like they’re sowing. They’re “security” and they all get up and come over to me to hear about my problem. I’m surprised that it’s all women, and as I remember, a bit concerned about this. Not a major theme, but I do remember it.

End of dream. I wake up and clearly remember the dream and sense it’s a dream of importance.

Years back I started to pay attention to dreams. I believe many are not significant, but there are those with a lot of energy and easily remembered. To these I pay careful attention.

I do three things with these dreams. Got this from the book Dreams and Spiritual Growth: A Christian Approach to Dreamwork. Also did some reading from Morton Kelsey and some other stuff. Anyway, first I give the dream a title. So this dream I might title “Attacked On The River and Looking for Security.” Then I name the themes. So with this dream some themes are:
• Traveling – rafting trip
• Being attacked – someone throwing rocks
• Loss – the raft
• Problem solving
• Looking for help - security
Finally, I name the emotions I experienced. Fear, anger, frustration, disorientation, surprise, hmmmm…there was also peace and relaxation as I was rafting until someone threw the rocks at me.

That’s as far as I usually go. I have some ideas what’s up with this dream, but I don’t usually write that stuff out. I think that’s because if I do I might stop the dream emerging and doing work in me. I’m might write about it a while later when it’s pretty much played out.

I’m grateful for dreams. I think it’s an amazing way that God speaks to us. And often times it an experience of ‘crazy time.”

Africa…The Coming Crazy Time

We’re, Miriam and I, and maybe our friend, Bruce, are going to Africa this coming December and early January. We’ll hopefully head out right after Christmas. There, I said it. You have to understand something. This scares the begeebees out of me. Actually, being in Africa (Burundi, to be exact) doesn’t bother me that much. I’ve spent several weeks in Paraguay and a couple weeks in Haiti before and really enjoyed, valued those experiences. What scares me is the flying. I deeply dislike flying in airplanes.

But we’re going and I’m really excited. Miriam’s parents were missionaries in Burundi. She hasn’t been there since she was a junior in high school. For years she has had little if any desire to go back, but in the last three or so years, there has been a growing draw back to the places where she grew up. She has some important reconnecting and reunderstanding work to do and I want to journey with her through all that. So why are we going to Africa? To do some humanitarian work for others? Nope. Just to allow Miriam to revisit places important to who she is and most likely to find some healing for her. If the truth be told, we probably should have made this trip years ago. I only hope I’m not the reason we haven’t. For my part, I’ve taken Miriam to all the places that were important to me growing up. Finally, it’s her turn. Of course, we’re going to spend as much money on this one trip to her stomping grounds as we have on all the trips we’ve taken to Colorado, so….

It’s been exciting to see how God has gently, but consistently been moving us to this trip in the last three years. We even tried to use a trip to Hawaii for our 25th wedding anniversary as a substitute. No deal. We’ve made contact with a person that Miriam’s parents knew and who is running an organization in the capital of Burundi for people, especially women and children, who were traumatized by the violence in Burundi during the civil strife. His name is David Niyonzima. Wonderful man. He has visited in our home twice and the timing of his visits in relation to the timing our plans has been spooky…divine, some might say, some like me. Then there has been the encouragement of Bruce and the possibility of him going with us. He and I have tracked together in several important aspects or our lives together and when he showed interest in going, it seemed so natural. Then, for me personally, there has been the reading of a couple important books that have challenged me to stretch…move into crazy time…go for adventures I would be sorry I would have avoided later in life. But most of all, it has been journeying with Miriam, watching the need for her to visit Burundi rise in her heart and mind and knowing there is nowhere else I would rather be than with her as she lives into this challenge and transformation. She is the most incredibly and loving person I know, and to support her in this trip brings me deep joy.

So we’re going to Africa. I’ll be flying in a plane for hours and hours and hours. But hey, I’ll be sitting next to Miriam. That makes it good.