four dreams

this one is recurring: i've had it for years. it has unlimited variations, but the dream is always the same.

this time i am with my friend Flyingfisher and i don't know what about it is my fault, but there is fault and it is mine. this time the attacker is a man i have been talking to. he's wearing a light blue button down shirt; he's bald on top, he wears wire-rim glasses. he looks harmless enough but at some point he becomes threatening to us, to Flyingfisher in particular.

and i have to stop him. i do not have enough strenth to pull him away; nothing i say can stop him. i have to resort to violence. this time the weapon at hand is a garden rake. i strike him with it, trying to get his attention with the blunt end.

he only smiles at me, turning his attention back to her. i start trying to dig in with the tines, his arm, his shoulder, his head. oh, God, his head. and the tines strike and stick and i pull them out and strike again and there is blood and there are bone chips and he is not stopped but as long as i keep hitting him he does not look toward Flyingfisher.

he laughs at me, telling me there will be no help forthcoming, that no one will believe this

ever

happened.


~~~~~


once when i was very broken down i came crushed from my day to evening prayer.

please watch over me. let me sleep, let me rest. watch over me in the night. be with me, and let nothing come with intent to harm.

and in the night Jesus comes and gets in on the right side of the bed, against my back. he watches over me. he keeps a hand on me. and i sleep.


~~~~~


i am standing- no, maybe standing is not the word for it, even though suspended isn't really the word, either, because there is no floor, no ceiling, there are no walls. there is no center, no sense of gravity and there is nothing but blackness.

but above me there is another place, a room, maybe, and it is full of light. there's a door of some sort above me and behind it is all light. it isn't blinding and it doesn't light up wherever i am; it is still all black, all nothingness, but the rays of it slice through the darkness in much the same way as sunlight streams through the clouds on a summer day, lighting up where the fingers touch.

i cannot see how the light makes its way to me; i can see no link from the room above to me, but when i stretch out my hand the light shines from my fingertips. everything i touch is held in light.


~~~~~

i am sleeping on my right side. when i sleep on my left i feel as if i am wrapped up and kept safe, but when i sleep on my right it is as if i can hold the whole of the world in my arms and lift it to my great heart.

and for a while, maybe at the same time, the whole of the wold appears flat to me and every christian that ever was stands up together shoulder to shoulder and we all shout in unison YES, WE ARE READY TO SERVE YOU.

the world is round again. there are spaces between us and in the spaces we are all set to our tasks. we do not ask how or why; it is late and there is much work to be done.