The water around the city, though deep and dark, was not all that wide. Like a moat, it flowed east, south, and west, circling the city, which built steel bridges and wide ferries so people could cross over. Without the bridges and ferries, people would have been trapped on their land, like beetles in a bottle, having just a slim neck in the north to leave by.

At night, it was natural for the inhabitants of the city to dream about the water since they lived in its embrace. Yet, this was no Walden Pond. Soaring structures of steel, turbine engines, blazing factories, gas guzzling airports and clunky trains, wiped out any trace of pastoral beauty. It would take a very strong imagination to think of Native Americans fishing the bay for oysters or New Yorkers in the 1800s vacationing on the beach. So, people lived like dwarfs, dominated by their surroundings. They came to accept their gigantic skyways, their fuel-fossil machinery, which did nothing but haul things and people on and over the water and back again. All things seemed to be whizzing and banging with the go-around of tankers, tugs, taxis, cranes, planes, barges and cars. Still, the sun set over Watchung in the West and the water shifted with tidal grace according to its Creator.

As a child, I longed to get into the water or on it. I spent entire summers watching it from a steep point on the edge of a sketchy park that had escaped city development. I felt hopelessly separated from the water as I didn’t know anyone who had a boat nor could I wade in from the beach because the beach was covered in tar and garbage.

All I had was my imagination and desire. In my mind, I began to see myself in the water, capable of swimming to a buoy in the middle of the bay, coming to rest there with the seagulls, then going further west, swimming all the way to Newark. I said to myself, if I can see it, I can swim to it.

I believed these thoughts, which preoccupied my mind the way video games occupy people nowadays. I felt that by believing I could swim in the bay, I was connected to it and clever, not needing adults or machines. One day, I told my best girlfriend that I thought I could swim to anything I could see. She looked at me with scorn.

Sixty years later, I want to dream I’m on the Newark Bay, that I’m looking south at the Bayonne Bridge, North at the Turnpike Bridge. I can feel how the bridges are the Ying to the water’s Yang. Ah, if only tonight I had another dream of flying, my hands outstretched like Super Girl, over Newark Bay; I’d smile in my sleep, looking down at the waters as they flow East to the pilings of the Verrazzano and beyond.

The gurus say there is a Heart behind your heart that never arrests.
But I scoffed at their guidance to practice breathing, no daring-do in that I said
then one day I was ready for “semi-retirement” but I couldn’t shift
so, I opened the box on my electrical panel and found just one switch inside marked “work”
I made sure the work switch was “off”, but no relaxation resulted,                                                          Puzzled I looked for the soul-ution, for something seemed broke, 
I discovered I had a frozen Diaphragm!
I didn’t really know what that was or how it operated, so I checked it out on YouTube.                        
I saw lungs go in and out, a diaphragm goes up and down!                                                                 I couldn’t get mine to move so I told a friend, a singer, my problem.                                                        She said breathe into your back, you have lungs there, you know. 
I did that and it felt so good, but no relaxation resulted. 
I tried to force my diaphragm to move but it wouldn’t budge.                                                    Now I imagined I was in pain, like a circle of thorns was around my waist.
I prayed for guidance (when all else fails, right?) and found a gifted energy healer in my town!
With her help, I relinquished the nuts and bolts, I’d screwed into my diaphragm, beginning in childhood, when I had stopped breathing as a reaction to hearing adults tell me I was lazy, that I  would not amount to much; that’s when I started to freeze, making a steely commitment to myself to WORK and prove them wrong.
The gurus say there is a Heart behind your heart that never arrests. This Heart is like a beautiful, luminous egg resting in a nest of breaths. The Heart is unchanging love, a pearl of so-called great price. Everything I think I know and everything I think I have, I relinquish to relax and live in this Heart. Thank you, Guides and Gurus. Namaste!
 

Fall in line
you are light
you are immortal 
what's out of line?
that you were told 
you came in 
nothing 
and you 
go out 
nothing 
truly i tell you
light with light aligns
you align earth to heaven
turn on a dime
back to where you came

This time last year, the priest at ER, Sam, texted me to say Bette was in Pennsylvania Hospital and it was not looking good. I drove an hour in rush hour traffic to pick him up at ER and we went together to see Bette, helpless and covered in tubes, surrounded by family. I’m more of a family friend now, so I was glad to let Sam do the clergy role. I stared at Bette, she looked grey and I thought she is dying right in front of my eyes; well, we’ve gone through a lot together and we are going to go through this too.

No one was talking, though I could hear some sniffles and sighs. Then, Bette’s daughter began singing. It was a tune from the African American hymn book, Sweet, Sweet, Spirit, I had taught Emmanuel Church 25 years ago. I felt my heart turn soft as custard. Then, Bette opened her eyes. She had been unconscious all day but just like that, she began to move her hands around; She was conducting us! Astonished, we kept singing and then started talking to her all at once.

The evening grew late and a question of code status was now back, the elephant in the room; the family decided to hold a meeting. Sam and I went too. I hoped to be useful since I’ve experience with these types of meetings, and I wanted to do everything I could to make my friend’s passing a “smooth landing.”

Susan, the daughter, went around the circle asking for each person’s opinion about what choice should be made for Bette’s code status now; the dreaded DNR/DNI discussion. The oldest brother left the room after saying NO to the DNR/DNI and the family seemed to stall in verbalizing a course of action. I wondered what Bette wanted. So, I slipped away and went to her. She was awake, though she could not speak for all the tubes and mask over her lower face.

I said, Bette, what do you want to do? Do you want to go, or do you want to fight? She “said” fight, in her eyes and with a nod. I went back to the family meeting and let them know, which sort of was a clincher, because they had already gone in that direction. Then, I felt peace come upon the tired group, we could leave aligned with the nurses, with one another, with Bette and with life. Each of us went to our own bed to see what the morning would bring.

I went to bed believing I would hear that Bette had passed peacefully in the night. What I got was a photo on my text message, Bette sitting up in bed, two thumbs up, the tubes still in place.

The other day I called Bette to wish her a Happy Easter and to plan our birthday celebrations in May. She will be 93. We did not mention the events of last year, but I was remembering Bette’s ER Miracle

.

If you love the Principals, I hope you will enjoy playing with them as I have. If you are new to the Principals, I hope this ordering will draw you in to want to know more. Let me know what you think in the comment section. Name which principals catches your attention the most, if you can. Thanks so much for reading.

Miracles – for me to memorize as a beginner
#32 I (Jesus) inspire all Miracles.
#13 Miracles are thoughts
#37 A Miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me

#4 All Miracles mean Life; God is the Giver of Life  
#19 Miracles make minds one in God           
#29 Miracles praise God thru you                                                                                               #31 Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe,                                                                  you should thank God for what you really are
#11 Prayer is the medium of Miracles -                                                                                            thru Prayer love is received  & thru Miracles love is expressed

# 3 Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love; the real Miracle is the Love that inspires them, in this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle
#9 Like all expressions of love, miracles bring more love both to giver and receiver 
#16 Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive; they simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver
#18 A Miracle is a service…it is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself
# 33 Miracles honor you because you are loveable
#35 Miracles are expressions of love, but they may not always have observable effects

#21 Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Thru miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others
#25 Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness, which when completed, is the Atonement
#26 Miracles represent freedom from fear. “Atoning” means “undoing.” The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement value of Miracles.
#33 Miracles thus atone for your errors by freeing you from you from your nightmares

What’s the catch?
like a bunny that tumbled into a pond,
the human mind drowns in the endless sea
of wrongs, 
our experience of capture in captivity 
human made
I look for the wrong, there’s always a catch
Who but humans sink into insanity, 
My judgements and opinions, a plague on earth
Clouded mind, with inescapable ideas of guilt and sacrifice (what actually is war?)
Believing we are loveless we settle for Likes and Dislikes
The very obstacles to love
But wait! Is there a choice, in the corners of my mind, rolled up in a ball with cobwebs?
Yes, I find undiscovered choices.
I can choose again, let me not resist release
Let me be free, be saved, 
Let me relax, let go of everything I thought I knew
And peace, the impossible, is possible, is true, without end
There is no catch in truth
Release means i never heard of death or even saw the deadly pond

The Clock

​Bubble wrap me                                                                                                                            take me out to whirl and spin by battery                                                                                  put me on the desk, on the darkened glass,                                                                                            slide the globe over my face that hands you time                                                                    save the wrap while we in comfort chat

The Lamp                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Bubble wrap me                                                                                                                            take me from North to South, East to West                                                                              put me atop the books, on the hardwood shelf                                                                        shine my light over your mind that dreams you life                                                                save the wrap while we in comfort chat

The Body

Bubble wrap me                                                                                                                            take me out to sail the calm and crystal sea                                                                             put me on a plank, on the burying board                                                                                  slide me into the sea, with your prayers to plunge                                                               save the wrap while you in comfort chat

I see the wind stir the willow tree on the plains 
I see the wind stir the grey waters in the bay
I see the wind loosen my mother’s hair, riding in her red Camaro
Over the bridges of New Jersey to that tree in South Dakota
The tree where the black dog, a long chain to hold him there, lies in the shade
I disobey, don’t go near the dog, my mother says
Father, I have sinned and I know my sin
I remember, the day I was born, when the wind said to me, “I’ll come play with you on the day you call me.”
I take loose-leaf paper and write on each line a sin, a fault, a guilt of mine
I want to ball the paper, crush it in my hands, shove it into garbage can under the sink
Then, I remember the wind
I remembered what she said when I came to earth
I call the wind, I do not know where it comes from or where it goes
The wind comes laughing out of my own heart
I hold the loose-leaf page at arm’s length
The paper thunders and shakes in my hands
I hold on tightly
The wind plays her part, but I must release my hold
I loosen my grip
I wake up, I am the wind

What I would not give, will not come to me
What healing I would not give, will not come to me
I hold my hurts, withhold my healing, joy will not come to me
I can't solve the equation, what I do to others is what I do to myself
What I think of others, is what I think of myself
What I would give to release my thoughts, my story of the past,  
The interpretations I made up
What would I give to Cast it not on you
To forgive and forget all mistakes I thought I'd made, that anyone has ever made,
What I would give to cross that border 
It can be given, that light that enlightens everyone is given
It will come to you and to me
What I would not give for that, for morning broken, fresh from the word

Morning, March 20, Marsh Creek, PA

My story of what happned one day while I was in Honduras demonstrates such a memory for me. It was like a dream…

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Men with pistols and rifles, with ammo, Walmart greeters Honduras style @ the gas stations, the bodegas, the mall and along the roads.

Carry your passport, they can stop you and if they do to jail you will go if you can’t hand them your papers

I travel with several other teachers through Tegucigalpa into the dry mountains, never a river to ride along, a lake to stop and see roads are rutted, the passengers rock back and forth, smiling, talking, singing, their complaints are the same as their country’s waterways, nada

I learn humility in Honduras hanging out with them at a mountain top orphanage with children in clothes from the USA, tee shirts from Chickie & Pete’s in the mix my mind tries to take in: they have nothing, nothing at all, My mind can’t take it in but what I see changes me for good

But I won’t carry my passport, I fear losing it more than I fear getting stopped; but then The van door slides open, the rifle on his back blocks us from making any movement but to reach for our backpacks and purses. Like the others, I look into mine and root around. Where are those papers? The man smiles, thin lips in a gentle smile.

He begins with the person to his right (we somehow sit sort of in a circle in the van) he starts there and then to the next, and to the next, and to the next and to me. Each hand him, papers which he glances and judges in a military instant.

I continue to root around in my purse, making a show of my persistent effort to find my passport. In my mind I’m composing a speech, a list of beguiling excuses. He passes over me, points at the person to my right, and then to that person’s right, but then he swings back to me, points to me, waiting. I have my speech ready, but no speech! I am physically incapable of moving my lips. I stare and then look down into my purse, as if I’m about to find my passport at any moment. His attention swings away from me to the last persons sitting there with their papers.

He’s coming to the last person; I want to open my jaw, but it won’t move. I am expecting the soldier to address me at any moment. He’s come to the last person, he’s nodding, he’s closing the door. Our driver takes off, the van dips into a 2-foot pothole to get back on the road. To this day, I think of Daniel in the lion’s den, how the angels can keep mouths shut. That’s what saved me and stays with me like a dream

.

I was about to be crushed to death by a huge, yellow construction vehicle while I pleaded with a person to help me. This person stared at me but showed no reaction. When I went to bed the night before, I thought, “my life is going good.” So, why this nightmare? I knew this was Wisdom’s way of getting my attention. So, although I wasn’t happy about it, I knew I had dream work to do.

As I measured the coffee and poured the water into the pot, and the coffee pot began to gurgle, my body still tingled from the adrenaline set loose by my dream. I started an inner dialogue; my life is good, I’m working hard, I’m productive, I’m hopeful, my life is calm, I’m not caught in any dramas, so what the hell? Why am I getting crushed to death by a big, yellow, industrial shovel? Why? Why? Why?

I sat down on my sofa with a hot cup of coffee and gazed out the window at the dark sky and the few cars on the road. Sometimes, from my dream, I’ll get a quick insight, a yes, or an Ah Ha, in these early hours. But this time, in my inner dialogue, nothing came. So, I had to put my dream into puzzle pieces and play at putting them together. There is no right or wrong in dream work.

In this step, play with your dream like a puzzle. The puzzle pieces looked like this:

1. The back of the construction vehicle, narrow and rounded, came through the window of my Jeep Cherokee where I sat behind the wheel.

2. This rear rounded surface was about to whack me right in my head, so I swung to my right and lay down over the console, bending from my waist. Now the rear of the construction vehicle was over my head, pinning me down. The vehicle had stopped backing up, giving me a moment to think that I was about to be crushed, that the driver could not see me or hear me.

3. Then I saw a face looking in from the opposite window. It had googly eyes, its cheeks puffed up. I thought I saw a two-barrel pipe somewhere to his left. I wondered is this construction worker smoking pot. Is his mouth puffed up filled with smoke? He looked “Out of it.”

4. In terror that the vehicle would start moving and I’d be crushed, I pleaded with him to help me, but he showed no reaction. Is he high? This was the last dream word, then I woke up.

Construction vehicles are in my neighborhood right now, huge shovels digging up mounds of dirt, piling up the dirt in 50 feet mounds. I see other construction vehicles too, as I drive to and from work; spring is the time they like to start on construction projects, but I never like to see them changing the earth the way they do.

It’s good to do some research on a dream figure or word. This is always a productive and often fun thing to do with a dream. I looked up construction vehicles and found mine: The Excavator. It has a huge arm and shovel in the front. The picture showed the tapered rear end, just as it appeared in my dream, when it was about to whack me in the head. I felt the terror again, saw the yellow metal about to whack my head! WHACK! I suddenly thought: Am I out of whack? Out of balance? Is my dream trying to whack me upside my head? Yes.

All the images and features of the dream are the dreamer. some aspect of the dreamer, relevant to the dreamer, but not known by the dreamer.

I knew the driver of the Excavator as my shadow; it can’t see or hear me. I couldn’t see or hear it. It was sobering to think my shadow was in the driver seat of a powerful, industrial machine while my conscious mind is in my personal vehicle. I thought about how this might apply in my daily routine of life. I could playfully go back into the dream and see myself walking from my Jeep and climbing up into the construction vehicle. I can come back to this active imagination at other times, like when I am waiting in a line or driving.

For now, I thought about “excavating” and of the work I do as a Chaplain and spiritual teacher; you could call it construction or excavating, digging deep in spiritual and psychological fields professionally and for my personal growth. I’m dedicated and disciplined, spending tons of time at this work every week….Mmmm. For the first time, I asked myself: Am I out of whack…Or am I about to be whacked (a word for death)?

In a dream, a word that comes to you is like silk, you need to hold it up at various times, to turn it this way and that, in the light, to let all its facets shine and glisten into your mind. Another way to get the most out of your dreams and nightmares, is to bring them with you into your day, to accompany you and speak to you as you make choices.

This is how I’ll use my “Nearly Crushed by a Construction Vehicle” Dream this week:

I’ll change my routine, less reading, listening, writing. I’ll add more musing, music listening, and meditating. I’ll ease off the excavating, the heavy lifting and play more with the silly face. I’ll think of those googly eyes and lighten up! Play more. Play with the idea of Trickster or a Shaman or better yet find little ways to BE a Trickster or Shaman. I can ask these Archetypes which are in my mind, to help me be balanced, not out of whack. I can ask them to help me take a step toward integrating the three aspects of myself shown to me in my dream.

If you have a dream or nightmare, it comes for your integration, for your balance, for your growth. When you enter a dialogue with your dream, you can find a bigger picture and act with new insight. Use your dreams whenever you are feeling out of tune, or out of alignment or think you may be out of whack. They come from on high for you.

Add dreams with your morning coffee and let the magic happen.

A Dog, A Dream, A Decision

A greyhound was my companion for 10 years. Her name? Fantasia. She was black with white splashes on her chest and toes. She had a contemplative and dignified nature and didn’t play with toys or other dogs. One day I heard her wheezing coming up the stairs to our apartment. I knew it was Congestive Heart Failure.

We went to the vet, got medication and I changed her menu. I began buying her Rotisserie Chicken. I left off my vegetarian ways, strengthening our bond by eating the meat together; she liked the white and I liked the dark. We shared the skin and ate it with tongue-licking relish. We ate chicken together for over a year.

After Fantasia left for the rainbow bridge, I wanted to be vegetarian again but each time I walked into the grocery store, I’d feel like an addict getting a hit of cocaine up my nose from smell of the hot chickens being slowly baked in the oven; the sight of the crispy skin through the glass doors would overcome my self-control. I’m not a strong-willed person. Fearful that I would always be stuck in this turmoil, I said a little prayer. Maybe Fantasia heard, I don’t know, but I had a dream, a dream that solved my ever being tempted again.

I dreamed I went into the supermarket. I walked to the meat display where packaged chicken parts were for sale. I looked at the packages as if shopping. I looked more closely to inspect the meat parts, then realized, these were the thighs and breasts of dogs.

I woke up and felt free from the desire for chicken. It had been completely removed for me. And I knew, if I ever did feel tempted, one instant of the memory of this dream would make me decide, No, not for me.

Dreams are a means to help us stay on the path we want to be on. When dreams come our way, they can be full of grace and power. Dreams are given to everyone to use for their empowerment.

Woman human                                                                                                                                                            wind running her hands in your hair
draw her breath down
wild and tossing
in your throat
and hold her
hold her treasure 
Human woman
Let go
Hear the wind
hissing past your yellow teeth
you are innocent and wise

Hail Wind

I wrote this poem this morning, for March, for Mary of the Annuciation, For Women’s History Month, inspired by my dreams and ACIM and my last visit to the dentist. Thank you for reading my edit. I am learning! Thank you to my writing partner, Rachel Kobin, Founder & Director of The Philadelphia Writers’ Workshop.

Woman human wind running her hands in your hair

draw her breath down

wild and tossing

in your throat

and hold her

hold her treasure

Life

Human woman

Smile

Let go

Hear the wind

hissing past your yellow teeth

you are innocent and wise

Here’s how AI words it:

Near-death experiences (NDEs) involving leaving the body are frequently described by survivors as a transition from a physical, temporary vessel into a state of higher consciousness, often mirroring the detachment one might feel when moving from a “rental” object back to their true home. Individuals often report seeing their physical body from above, describing it as a temporary container they no longer need, feeling liberated, and experiencing a profound sense of peace and freedom.

Here is how the “rental car” (or temporary vehicle) analogy aligns with reported NDE experiences:

• Detachment from the “Machine”: During an out-of-body experience (OBE), the consciousness separates from the physical body, which is often perceived as an empty container or “vehicle” that anchors the person to earthly reality.

Last night, I dreamed that my car got towed; I came out of work to an empty space and accepted the situation without getting upset.

With my dreams, I don’t take a scalpel to them, but treat them more like pizza dough, kneading, spinning, tossing, baking. And I consider my daily planner; if I wrote this dream down in my day timer, what connections might click?

As it happens, today I had to contact my bank about a CD that had matured. They had sent me a form with a list of options about what to do next; I wanted to put the money toward my car loan. I also needed to take funds out of my retirement account. I wanted to use this money to decrease the loan even further and I was quite excited about it. If I wrote in my calendar next to “bank,” “car got towed” wouldn’t that be funny or ironic?

Dreams come to relieve our anxieties. They help us to look at what we think is serious and heavy and show us it is not so.

I remember how serious I had been when I purchased the car last year. I almost walked out of the car dealer three times, stressing the whole five hours it took to get the loan and the car.

This type of stress, you might say is normal, quite normal in American life.

But as I go back to my dream, finding my car towed and I’m not upset, I see myself as peaceful. The peace I experienced in my dream is real; I can bring it into my day. I face my day with faith that if I’m in a challenging situation, I’ll be grounded, so to speak, by my peace.

As I have meditated on my dream, my gratitude today has deepened; I’m grateful to have the car I have, knowing this will be my last car since I am in my seventies. I’m grateful to have the thought that when my body gets towed away, I won’t be upset. For this view of death, comforting and humorous, I’m grateful to my dream.

All dreams come for our healing and wholeness. They can help us turn from fear and stress.

My mindfulness instructor lectured on the lawn, feet away from the barn. We were a small group of women on a mindfulness retreat with horses. The 150-acre ranch sheltered 60 rescued horses, ponies, donkeys and zebras. All these animals were in stalls or corrals or tied to a post, but not this horse, and too late, I fell under its spell.

My mother had been an excellent horse woman and came from a family of riders on the plains of South Dakota, however, because she married a man from a big city, I and my sister were being raised far from Nature of any kind. During the one time she took us, ages five and four, to visit South Dakota, she put the fear of God into me, never to walk up to a horse. Sixty-five years later, I’m on a mindfulness retreat with horses to undo my fear.

Our instructor was the perfect teacher for me, methodically taking us through horse biology and psychology. Each of us on the retreat could walk around the corrals and stables, pick a horse and, using our mindfulness techniques, ask that horse if it was willing to form a bond. My soul soared to the free horse, sensing healing would come from him if I followed my heart.

Being to being, in telepathic messaging, the big, white horse let me approach. The others in my group were in awe, watching. The instructor got a photo, pure joy on my face, as I stood with my head near the horse’s shoulder, my hand on his neck and well below his head.

The horse’s name, I learned was Hitch. How he came to be at the rescue ranch was a mystery. Seems that a trailer holding 10 horses rescued from a meat supplier got the horses to Rhinebeck, NY, to the Sanctuary. The drivers had papers for 10 horses, but when they unloaded them, there were 11 horses!

The drivers had no idea how the horse had got on the transport and no papers for it. The horse had hitched a ride out of the slaughter pen to new life a few miles from the Hudson River. His demeanor, intelligent, independent, communicative, was beyond the pale of all the other animals, so they let him go around wherever he liked and whenever he liked. That’s how I came to see Hitch, standing alone in the darken shadow of the big barn.

Last winter, Hitch fell on the ice. He couldn’t get up. So, he hitched a ride to his eternal home, again with the help of the stable workers and vet. It is going to snow today; I cry a little as I remember him; remembering he was the color of snow and feeling our bond.

The people, many of them Kodak families, love their traditions. They sing, kneel, and take communion in an unchanging service. The organ is played by a superior student of the Eastman School. Vested acolytes and robed clergy conduct the worship and at the conclusion, after the organist performs a virtuoso piece and the candles are extinguished by the acolytes, everyone heads to the library for Coffee Hour, the final ritual of the morning.

One Sunday morning, as usual, I watched people gather in the library, approaching the long conference table, queuing up on either side. They took plates, utensils, napkins and ladled food from the various dishes, chit-chatting noisily. On the table were deviled eggs and nova lox, bacon, bagels and cream cheese, a tray of cold shrimps and red sauce, pastries including a Wegmans’ coffee cake, and a box of donut holes from Tim Horton’s.

I never eat because I am the clergy leader; I have to keep my wits about me because people would hand me things or bring up sticky subjects that kept me too anxious to enjoy eating and drinking.

On this Sunday, someone came up to me and said a woman was in the hall wanting to speak to me; she did not know who she was, had never seen her before. I turned and saw this stranger come into the library. She was crying and heading right for me; she must have spotted my clergy collar.

She was crying loudly but she spoke softly. Everyone hushed and listened. She asked if she could talk to me privately; out of the corner of my eye I could see the church treasurer rolling his eyes and making a funny face. I had to suppress a smile; the woman was fake crying, sounding silly. If she was auditioning for a part in the play, she never would have got cast

I walked toward the woman, her crying grew louder, as we left the room, a quick glance back showed me smiles and rolling eyes across the room. Out in the hall, she told me her tale; she and her husband were driving from Canada to North Carolina and had run out of gas and money. She asked me for gas money.

I replied, “We don’t give money. But I can buy gas at the station on the corner. I’ll follow you in my car.” Leaving the church, I saw a surly, unshaven, unsmiling man behind the wheel of their pickup truck.

Five minutes later, I was inserting the church credit card into the pump. The woman said nothing and had stopped crying. I watched the dial until I heard the click on the pump. Othe customers were getting gas and going into the store for coffee and breakfast.

Then I heard myself say to the woman, “If you’ve run out of money that means you must not have had anything to eat today, let’s go inside and get something for you and your husband.” Then, the woman burst into real tears which shocked me, but I played cool.

I think of this situation often. I am working on my judgement of my ministry, which in my opinion I fell way short on extending love or seeing Christ in this man and this woman.

In practicing A Course In Miracles, I can decide to let go of my opinion and judgement.

In practicing dream work I can use my imagination to go back and do this situation all over again. In my dream I’d invite the woman to call her husband and come share in our Coffee Hour, I’d listen to their story, tell them about our church and then, after all that, I’d go to the gas pump with the church credit card and bless them on their way.

Anyone can let go of the past and choose again. This is Forgiveness.

Dreams are not time sensitive; any dream you can remember is waiting to be of benefit to you. And any dream you share can benefit others.

When I was young, we didn’t talk about dreams in my family; no family member shared a dream with me, except one time, when my father told me a dream he’d had in the orphanage when he was young. He had been raised in a Catholic orphanage and slept in a dorm until he was old enough to leave.

In the dream, he stood beside an angel; he saw inert bodies spread over an area. Frightened, he asked the angel, “Are they dead”? The angel replied, “No, they are asleep.”

When my father gave me his dream, he gave me a glimpse into his private life and I knew to treat the dream as a secret, sacred thing. From that moment, I felt the dream lodge in my mind.

Sixty years later, here I am writing about dreams and studying A Course in Miracles. Both dreams and A Course in Miracles are aids. They are aids to help us in the process of awakening from our collective dream, in which we experience death and the loss of everything we’ve ever loved.

Today, many people are remembering the ritual of getting ashes on their brows; some will go to church, some may show up at an Ashes to Go at a busy crossroads. We beat our breasts there saying we are dust and to dust we shall return. The ritual brings to light what is in our depths, we caused our guilt, we caused the reason for our punishment, we ask for mercy, yet in our minds the story remains; we will leave life, it will be taken from us and anything and anyone we ever cared about will disappear into dust.

How is this not a nightmare? Let us be glad that we can wake up from this nightmare. Jesus says, in The Course, you dreamed guilt, death and duality. You dreamed up opposites, each vacillating with each other, dark and light, life and death. But in truth, its only a dream, not real. In truth, I was not punished because you were bad. I assure you, You will smile and say, what a ridiculous dream I had!

Only God is Cause, not you. God is Cause, you the Effects.. The Cause and the Effects are one: God is Love and so too must be the Effects. Nothing else is real. This relationship, this love, this truth is still it is in your mind, permanent and true. You have never left Source but you dreamed a dream that you did.

My father’s dream showed an angel. Angels come to tell us: Do not be afraid. My father’s dream showed sleeping humans. From A Course in Miracles, here’s a caption I would add to my father’s dream on this Ash Wednesday (p 595 in The Foundation for Inner Peace combined volume edition):

This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream.

They are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause.

The body is released because the mind acknowledges “this is not done to me, but I am doing this.”

And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead.

Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone.

Beginning here, now is the time of awakening.

Most of us throw away our dreams like used coffee grinds.

We leave them on the doorstep of our mind; we have no time to open them. Though we have over a thousand dreams each year, we rate them nonsensical, irrational, enigmatic.

Many sages, shamans and indigenous peoples treat dreams with respect and use them to guide relationships and groups for the common good. Most of us in the United States are not much interested in dreams though. It isn’t something many people do, get up in the morning and write down some of their dreams. But for those who do, dreams are a unique source for self-understanding, guidance and healing.

I’ve been paying attention and learning from my dreams for almost 50 years. I’d like to introduce people to dream work as a life changing way to love oneself.

For the Old Testament I borrowed an ancient cadence for my introduction to dream work.

There is a time for every dream under heaven.

A time to dream of flying

A time to dream of friends

A time to dream of braided hair

A time to dream of the dead

A time to interpret dreams

A time to tell a friend a dream

A time to meditate on a dream

A time to paint a dream

A time to undo a dream

Why do we resist our dreams?

Why do we dream if there is no purpose for them under heaven?

That can’t be right, can it?