Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Wanted: Dream Interpreters


It's Tuesday and I'm getting ready to leave my mom's house in Mountain View California for Davis. It's pouring rain here, by the way. Sunny California - right!

I spent the day yesterday with Amanda - driving around town to get things that she normally can't lug back to her dorm room without a car. We trekked through Target, Costco and finally landed at an Army surplus store to look for some good work gloves. Over Spring break she's going to Honduras as part of a first-ever SCU trip with the Water Brigade. They'll be working on a clean water project in Honduras. It was a good day to spend together. I've very proud of Amanda.

Today, after taking Amanda and a friend out to lunch, I'll be driving to Davis to see my friend Carl Linvill who works with an economic and environmental "think tank" in Sacramento. It's a good thing someone is thinking about stuff like that. Carl and I have been friends since 1971 and both went to college together; independently became Christians within a week of each other during college; and were in each others weddings. So it will be good to catch up.

So last night the "pastor dreams" started to kick in again. I don't remember a lot of details, but I was traipsing through a thick brush in my dreams. I may have been hacking through high grass with a machete, with a 3rd person view of myself. Then, right in the middle of this brush hacking, I realized that I was overwhelmed with one thought: What is the sermon about this week? What will the "points" be? I kid you not. Not only one sermon preoccupied my thoughts, but two. For some reason I had two sermons to prepare, and both were imminently due. There was a vague sense of a bible passage lingering in the dream, but it felt like I didn't know what I was going to say. As I write these words, I seem to have a memory of the same kind of thing happening last year when I was heading back home. It's not that hard to figure out what the dream was about, but what do you suppose the thick brush and hacking through it represents? The passage? Ministry? My relationship with God? Hmmm. Pipe in with your deep thoughts! May God fill your moments this week with his presence and grace.
- Curtis