Dreams

Many people have told stories about waking up from a nightmare with a sigh of relief that it was not real. Did you ever wake up from one thinking: “Oh no, I have to go back to sleep and try to finish that!” ???

I did, one morning this week. In that dream, I was trying to sort out some accounts, and knew that unless I got all the figures right, neither I nor anyone else was going to get home. I’m not sure exactly where I was, I only know it had been my first day on the job, and I wasn’t even employed, just doing some kind of internship, but they still laid this huge responsibility on me. And every time I was on the verge of getting it right, something happened to interrupt me, and I had to start over…

So my very first thought when waking up was that I had to return to the dream and straighten things out, or those “other people”, whoever they were, would still be in trouble...

Readers who have been following me for a while know that I’m fascinated by dreams and dream interpretation. (You will find earlier posts on the theme if you click the label “dreams”.) So later in the day, while out walking, I kept thinking about this.

First of all, I never really felt comfortable with figures and math. This week I’ve had to check income tax return forms for myself, for my father, and for my mother’s estate (almost a year after her death), so I guess that pretty much “accounts for the accounts” - and the feeling of being responsible for getting things sorted out not only for myself but for others as well.

But then there is this other dimension... 
The fact of still not being ‘done’ sorting out the affairs of someone who left this life a year ago. A visit from a friend the other day, who just recently lost another friend of hers to cancer. Talk of funerals. Thinking of other friends – some who died, some who survived. Having to tell people about my own recent troubles. Still waiting for the results of my biopsy last week. (That in itself a strange mix of trying to forget, be positive, and prepare for new trials all at the same time.)

And in nature, outside, things slowly coming back to life after the long sleep of winter…

I had another dream earlier in the week.
In that dream, I was invited to a wedding, or rather a renewal of vows for a couple married since many years back. It was a huge event, and I had the feeling almost everyone I’ve known in my whole life was at that party. The couple inviting us was a married couple whom in real life I haven’t seen for years, but who do “connect” a lot of my other friends, because they are known to people where I live now as well as also to friends back where I lived before. They are also an international couple: one of them comes from Sweden, the other from an English-speaking country across the earth.

 

The celebration they had invited us to was a much bigger event than any I’ve ever been to. It was not all festivities; it also involved really tough challenges, like mysteries and riddles to be worked out, and finding hidden ways and keys to get out of seemingly impossible situations. For the scenery, imagine a mix of the Colosseum and some of the more impressive scenery from The Lord of the Ring…

The whole adventure began with wonder,  continued with struggles, and ended in celebration.

       

From that dream I woke up with a sense of “wow” rather than anything else. I can’t recall ever having had a dream quite like it before.

To get back to the more recent “accounts” dream. As I said, my first feeling when I woke up from that one was that I had to go back to sleep to finish what I had left behind. But then as I grew more aware of things, it dawned on me that I was home, and awake, and that I did not have to go back and finish those impossible accounts. (Phew!)

Thinking about this later, during my walk, a parallel to the message of Christian faith (as it has been written into my heart) struck me. No matter how many years we live, none of us will really be able to “finish all the accounts”. Every one of us will be leaving some unfinished business behind one day, however much we strive not to. (And of course we should strive not to.) But when we wake up on that final morning, we shall realize that we are at home, and that we will not have to go back to sort things out. It has all been taken care of.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelations 21:1-4)

St Patrick's Day

Having become a Blog World Citizen, new days of Celebration are added all the time! Like today: Saint Patrick's Day. Inspired by the scrapbooking fair I went to on Sunday (and some of the things I bought) I made the card above, with this week's theme at the Soaring Through the World in Pictures blog in mind: Touch of Luck. For the photo, I put the card with one of my potted plants, a red-leaved variety of Oxalis triangularis.

Saint Patrick (circa 387–461 AD) is patron saint of Ireland because he brought Christianity to the Irish. Legend says he taught them about the Christian concept of the Trinity by referring to the shamrock, a three-leaved clover, using this as symbol of the 'three divine persons in the one God'. Legend also credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island. Evidence however suggests that Ireland never had snakes (or at least very few of them). But the snake did belong in Celtic symbolism, representing magic, druid wisdom, and the cycle of life/rebirth (because it sheds its skin). While in Christian symbolism, the serpent is a symbol of temptation, deceit and evil (Satan). So the banishing of the snake by St Patrick was most likely symbolic of getting rid of the old pagan religion.

Church(es)

Over the past few months, one of my Friendly Followers and Bloglings (GB) has posted a number of pictures of different kinds of church buildings in New Zealand. Somehow, his last church post (from the Anglican cathedral in Napier) led my thoughts back to a picture I had pinned up on my notice board for many years in my previous flat.
I had some trouble finding it now but at last I did. (Not on the internet, but in one of my drawers.) It's a postcard of an oil painting by a Swedish artist, Olle Olsson-Hagalund (1904-1972), entitled "Girl with plaster churches". As you can see, he depicts a girl having a bit of trouble choosing between a number of different models of churches for sale at a market.

There is no Wikipedia article in English for this artist, but if you click on his name above, the link will transport you to a Swedish website where you can have a look at some more of his paintings. His style is somewhat naivistic, very colourful, and marked by a lot of detail. He often also framed his paintings himself and then also painted the frame in his own very original style, to become part of the picture. (There are some examples of that too on that website.)

I saw a large collection of his paintings "live" at an exhibition back in the 1990s, and I think it's the only temporary art exhibition that I ever went back to three times (in a month or two) because I liked it so much. I also remember some of the things I learned about him - like the fact that when he went to his studio to paint, he used to put on his best suit! It was a feast for him to paint; and the joy of it often shows in his pictures. The painting of the girl with the churches was also included in that exhibition.

When I had that card put up on my wall, I combined it with a quote from an interview with the English writer Adrian Plass. His most famous book is probably The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37¾ (from 1987). (Ha! I only just now learned the full title of it - the Swedish translation leaves out the 37¾! I wonder why - I absolutely love that!) There are also a couple of sequels to that first one; but the first one was especially hilarious because the first time you read it you're not prepared (or at least I wasn't) so it takes you by surprise.
It is a very humourus, fictional satire of Christian life - "including such moments as trying to move a paperclip by faith" (sentence quoted from the Wiki article).

I find the book quite unique in that Plass manages to make fun of things without ever getting really mean or bitter about them. Part of the secret might be that he lends his own name to the main character and narrator of the story. This underlines that he is not just making fun of "other people" but of himself. And somehow he manages to catch the struggles, the stupid extremes, and the grains of true faith and love in the midst of it, "all in one". (I've been in churches very much like his fictional church; pretty much every scene in the book is familiar to me.)

This blog post is all digressions so far. I wonder if I'll ever be able to get round to some sort of point?

Getting back to that little piece of a quote that used to sit on my notice board, together with the Girl With Churches picture: That interview with Adrian Plass was published in a Swedish magazine, in 1996, i.e. some years after The Sacred Diary. In the interview, Adrian mentions that through the years, he has come to realize that he really belongs to two churches. One consists of the Christian friends who he is actually spending time with, talking to, sharing his life with. That "church" has no written rules, no real structure, and no building - but nonetheless, those people are his church. But then, at the same time, there is also the church that he formally belongs to (which does have rules, and structure, and a building to meet in); and going to services there he sees as a sort of public confession of his faith and of belonging to the Christian Church as such.

Now why did I have this picture, and this quote on my wall? Maybe after my ramblings here you can more or less guess. Through my life, I have "collected" a number of churches myself. Sometimes, the choice has come naturally, because of facts of life like moving from one town to another. Sometimes, there have been choices a little more complicated. But basically, around the time that I went to that art exhibition and read that interview back in the 90s, I found myself in a position similar to what Adrian describes. In my heart, there was one church of friends. But those friends did not all go to the same building to express their faith; and in some ways I found myself (like the girl in  the picture) embracing a whole "set" of different churches (with the same basic beliefs, but some different ways of expressing them).

Nowadays, with pain problems and things like that in the picture for me as well, I don't go regularly to any church. And when I do go, I have become a bit of a "browser". But there is still a church - or the church - in my heart. And over the last year, that church has kept growing faster than for a very long time. Because (somewhat to my amazement) I keep finding "church-building" ingredients everywhere in this cyberspace: wonderings, thoughtfulness, questions, doubts, faith, discussions, prayers, longing, worship, wisdom, laughter, tears, sharing and caring! Thank you.

~♥~♥~♥~

“It's rubbish to tell people that we can easily dispose of life's huge questions once and for all. We all have times when we're bad-tempered or we grumble. We all have doubts. What's wrong with saying that?”

Adrian Plass

About Me and Languages (6)

Again connected to my scanner (after a computer crash in November), and looking for just about any excuse to take a mental break from the cold weather outside, I decided to pick up and continue my sort-of-autobiography.


For new readers: This is a trip down "Memory Lane" that I began last year, and you will find links to previous episodes in a separate box below the Blog Archive.

 

In the summer of 1973, a month before I turned 18, I went on my next international adventure, although this time I did not actually leave Sweden. It was however the first time I went alone to a big international Christian conference. (I had turned to a personal Christian belief two years before.)

The conference language was English, several mission organisations were involved, and people from different countries attending. The focus was on Eastern Europe, where active Christians were in those days persecuted for their faith by Communist regimes.*

The conference was held in a village by the name of Dals Ed. Sleeping arrangements were simple - camping, or sleeping on air mattresses on the floor in the local school. The days were filled with Bible studies and meetings, mostly outdoors. It was a week of beautiful summer weather, in a beautiful spot.

I went alone to this conference, which again (like the stay in England the previous summer) was a valuable experience because it meant having to be open to new contacts. Most of the participants were from the Scandinavian countries, but all Bible studies and sermons were held in English. (Public sermons were also interpreted into Swedish.) This for me laid a foundation for learning to listen to the English language. I also bought tapes from some of the meetings which I listened to again afterwards. This conference also introduced me to the abundance of Christian literature in English. This in turn also laid a foundation for continuing to read such books in English, and to learn the theological terminology in English as well as in Swedish.

Music is important to almost every teenager. Music has also always been important in the church, all over the world. So naturally, music also played its part in this conference. It was the early 70's, and the Jesus movement brought a new type of music into the churches - simple praise songs, with the lyrics often based on direct quotes from the Bible, and also influenced by gospel music. To lead us in praise at this conference, there was a band from the American west coast - I can't remember now whether San Fransisco or Los Angeles. Anyway, they called themselves The Harvest Singers, and they were a bunch of really Cool people - and nice. I remember spending an afternoon sitting on a lawn in the sun, just talking to one of the guys - his name was Lee - for perhaps two hours, something like that. What we talked about, I can't remember. What I do remember is the feeling: A member of THE BAND, a really cool-looking, long-haired, guitar-playing American young man (in his early 20s, I guess)... talking to ME, out of all the people there... *LOL*

One thing he said, still lingers with me. That was on the last day of the conference, saying good-bye. He then said, very matter-of-factly:
If we don't meet again before - "I'll see you in heaven"...

One short phrase that just hit me, and never left. Somewhere at the back of my mind, there is still an image of heaven as a sort of reunion conference: a place where mysterious things will be explained, beautiful and sincere songs of praise sung, and we'll have all the time in eternity to finish all those conversations we had to leave dangling on earth...

*Footnote: I should perhaps add, that although this conference focused on mission in Eastern Europe, and working against the unjust treatment of Christians by the authorities in these countries, the teaching was not at all (in my perception) aggressive. In fact, I think it probably gave me a better understanding of the original ideas of Marxism and socialism than I ever got from any lessons at school.