FIGHTING OFF THE SNAKES
From a few weeks back ... I had started writing this blog, and like much of my life lately, I lost track of it, got WAAAAAAY hugely side-tracked, and well, just discovered this little gem.
I woke up in the wee hours of the morning ... okay, 3 a.m., to be exact, from a dream that I have not been able to shake the entire day.
We all dream. It's a fact. A scientific fact, to boot.
Most days, we wake up, hopefully refreshed, with a sense that a dream was had, hopefully, good, and we go about our day nary a care, well, at least for that particular dream, on our minds.
Trust me ... there are usually plenty of cares aside from dreams.
But today was different.
It is a reoccurring theme, this dream. I am heading for a beautiful place, usually my beloved Great Lakes, but I have to travers all these crazy roads to get to it, and just as I am about to grab my goal, something comes along ... like a dilapidated cottage where I thought a palatial one would stand ... or a flooded road ... or lots of twisty, turny roads that would scare the eastern right out of a Kentuckian.
If you are from the east side of this beloved Commonwealth, you know of what I speak. Amen?
Last night's dream was similar in theme and scope. I was driving down these rutted, oftentimes, dirt roads, that were more like the craziest obstacle you could dream up than they were roads. Now, in the dream, I was traveling for hours, and randomly, I would encounter people along the way that were also, apparently, heading to this nebulous destination. This, alone, is an interesting fact when you take into account how not tourist-friendly these roads actually were!
Long about the 3 a.m. hour, I finally saw my destination ahead of me. The crowning glory in my long, hard-fought battle, a gorgeous vista with cliffs and waterfalls and deep greenness and just breathtaking beauty.
At some point, I had left my vehicle and was traversing the remaining portion of the journey on foot. Flip-flopped ensconced foot, mind, when I meant to step over a particularly steep and tree-rutted part of the trail and was met by a nasty, grouchy rattler. Said rattler, pulled his venomous head back to strike, and just I was about to step out of the line of his strike, I realized that I would be stepping on another coiled rattler, camouflaged in the dead leaves on my path.
Then I woke up.
Two things strike me.
Number one, I just love how I managed to weave the topic of adaptations among living organisms, the current topic in fourth grade Science, into my dream. Hey! If that doesn't speak to integrated curriculum, I don't know what does.
Number two, I know this dream has a deeper meaning. That's the short of it.
Yep, that's why they gave me a liberal arts degree, folks.
But clearly, I am keeping myself from something. I am keeping myself from my own dreams.
As I was telling a friend about this dream, I said, "I am not into dream analysis, but you know, God used dreams throughout Biblical history, so I am sure, if He wanted to speak to me through a dream, He could and would. So, am I to surmise that I am standing in the way of my own destiny? And if so, how do I get out of my own way?"
Deep questions for the Eve of a New Year ...
I woke up in the wee hours of the morning ... okay, 3 a.m., to be exact, from a dream that I have not been able to shake the entire day.
We all dream. It's a fact. A scientific fact, to boot.
Most days, we wake up, hopefully refreshed, with a sense that a dream was had, hopefully, good, and we go about our day nary a care, well, at least for that particular dream, on our minds.
Trust me ... there are usually plenty of cares aside from dreams.
But today was different.
It is a reoccurring theme, this dream. I am heading for a beautiful place, usually my beloved Great Lakes, but I have to travers all these crazy roads to get to it, and just as I am about to grab my goal, something comes along ... like a dilapidated cottage where I thought a palatial one would stand ... or a flooded road ... or lots of twisty, turny roads that would scare the eastern right out of a Kentuckian.
If you are from the east side of this beloved Commonwealth, you know of what I speak. Amen?
Last night's dream was similar in theme and scope. I was driving down these rutted, oftentimes, dirt roads, that were more like the craziest obstacle you could dream up than they were roads. Now, in the dream, I was traveling for hours, and randomly, I would encounter people along the way that were also, apparently, heading to this nebulous destination. This, alone, is an interesting fact when you take into account how not tourist-friendly these roads actually were!
Long about the 3 a.m. hour, I finally saw my destination ahead of me. The crowning glory in my long, hard-fought battle, a gorgeous vista with cliffs and waterfalls and deep greenness and just breathtaking beauty.
At some point, I had left my vehicle and was traversing the remaining portion of the journey on foot. Flip-flopped ensconced foot, mind, when I meant to step over a particularly steep and tree-rutted part of the trail and was met by a nasty, grouchy rattler. Said rattler, pulled his venomous head back to strike, and just I was about to step out of the line of his strike, I realized that I would be stepping on another coiled rattler, camouflaged in the dead leaves on my path.
Then I woke up.
Two things strike me.
Number one, I just love how I managed to weave the topic of adaptations among living organisms, the current topic in fourth grade Science, into my dream. Hey! If that doesn't speak to integrated curriculum, I don't know what does.
Number two, I know this dream has a deeper meaning. That's the short of it.
Yep, that's why they gave me a liberal arts degree, folks.
But clearly, I am keeping myself from something. I am keeping myself from my own dreams.
As I was telling a friend about this dream, I said, "I am not into dream analysis, but you know, God used dreams throughout Biblical history, so I am sure, if He wanted to speak to me through a dream, He could and would. So, am I to surmise that I am standing in the way of my own destiny? And if so, how do I get out of my own way?"
Deep questions for the Eve of a New Year ...
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