From Whence Cometh the Dream?

It was almost a year ago to the day. My family was getting ready to move out of our parsonage into a new house in Wyoming, OH. To say that it was a hectic time would be the understatement of the year. Life resembled one of the stages on Super Mario Brothers; you know the one where the screen is moving, and you have to jump on a floating board before you fall into lava, while dodging fireballs… or something.

That may be an over dramatization; suffice it to say, things were more hectic than I would’ve liked them to be. Here’s a quick snapshot/timeline of the events.

• In April I received a call from my District Superintendent asking me to accept an appointment at the Church of the Saviour UMC.

• At the end of May we entered negotiations to buy the parsonage we were living in from my previous church. That didn’t go as planned, and I still regret the way it played out.

• In the beginning of June we began looking for another house in Wyoming, OH… during the worst buyers market I’ve seen as an adult.

• We found a home mid-June, and near the end of June we began the closing process. (As it turned out the house we bought would be the only 4 bedroom house available all summer. So even though we weren’t thrilled with it, we were thankful to be able to stay in the neighborhood.)

• July was filled with the rigors of closing, while packing and getting settled into a new role at Church of the Saviour.

I’m comfortable with change, more comfortable than most people I know. But this was a lot, and I was feeling the pressure from all sides. I was tired, mentally exhausted, frustrated, despairing a bit; again, it was a lot. Externally I looked fine, but I was a mess inside.

Then two nights before we were going to move out of the parsonage I had a dream. It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt real. To this day it is the most vivid experience I’d ever had while sleeping.

Ashanti and I were in a home; it was neither the parsonage nor the house we were preparing to move into. As we were milling about we both noticed a young woman standing outside. Her skin was a type of caramel color, and for some reason we both knew that she was Mary… you know, the Theotokos, aka Jesus’s mom.

Don’t ask me how we knew it was her, we just knew. (As an aside, I think in heaven we will just know people, the same way the apostles knew that it was Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. They didn’t have name tags on, they just knew.)

We didn’t open the door for her, because she didn’t seem like she was trying to come in at the moment. She was just standing there.

Day turned to evening, and when it was finally dark outside our front door opened. In walked Mary and a whole bunch of people — about 10 — following behind her. Ashanti was closer to the front door than I was and, as Mary and her group came in, they all greeted her then made their way towards me.

As each one came to me they started handing me these pamphlets that said stuff like, “Our Lady of the this…” or “Holy Mother of that…” For some reason this all felt completely normal to us.

As I’m receiving the pamphlets and talking to each person I looked to the front door and saw that one more person was coming in. It was my brother Shadrach.

Shadrach died on October 14, 2017. He was a cool dude, if you met him you would’ve liked him.

As I stared at him I was stunned by how healthy he looked. Healthy isn’t the right word to describe his look. Imagine what a person would look like if they had shalom coursing through their body; that’s how he looked. Complete peace, with a huge grin on his face.

He walked to Ashanti and they greeted one another with a laugh. Then he began moving towards me; at this point all of Mary’s people had entered a room behind me. As he came to where I was standing he embraced me and I him.

I woke up shaking! The shaking was so severe that it woke Ashanti, too. I shared the dream with her, and as I did I remember saying, “It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like an embodied experience I just had.”

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I don't know the nature of dreams and visions. I do know that they belonged to the prophets long before psychiatrists came along. But I’m still uncertain and incapable of discerning when a dream is a dream, and when a dream is a DREAM.

What I can tell you is that after that I felt different. The difference was like one would feel when a promise has been made by a reliable person, even though the thing promised hasn’t been delivered.

From that day on I went forward with a strong sense that all would be well. I knew that that Shadrach was well, better than well! But I also knew that me and my family would be kept in the midst of our minor tumult.

Again, I do not pretend to be know the origin of that dream, but I’m pretty confident that its source was God. I think he knew that I needed a reassuring and stabilizing word, and he sent a special messenger to deliver it in the form of an embrace.

Psalm 121 

¹ will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. ² My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. ³ He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. ⁴ Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. ⁵ The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. ⁶ The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. ⁷ The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. ⁸ The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.