A Blot of Mustard or an Underdone Potato? Or Something Else?

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It's been a minute since I posted a dream...to be honest, it's been a LONG minute since I had a dream even worth writing down. But this one stuck with me and when I accidentally hit 'New Post' instead of 'Stats' when I dropped by today I thought, 'Ok, I'll do it.'  Make of it what you will...too much news late at night?  A blot of mustard or underdone potato?  Or something worth thinking about?  

I don't know.  But here it is...

I dreamed I was a part of an international police task force tailing a terrorist cell around Europe. At times, we were closing in on them; other times, they nearly cornered us.  Ultimately, we learned that they intended to blow up an ancient church building in a remote village.  

This was not a cathedral or even a very large building, but it was old.  There was only one clergyman there to officiate services if anyone came.  We tailed the cell to the church for an evening service.  They were planning to go in and covertly plant explosives, but they had weapons in case the authorities involved them in a shoot out.  They were all wearing purple t-shirts and zip front purple hoodies, and a good number of them...thirty or so...headed into the church before an evening service.  We were in plainclothes, and our team leader sent us in to keep an eye on them. 'Don't worry, ' she said, 'I have a plan.'

Within a few minutes a whole slew of people from my home church began arriving (even in the dream, I wondered how they got there...to this remote village in Europe...from our town in the US, lol).  I tried to warn them not to tip off the people in purple that our leader had sent them, but they seemed unconcerned about that and were excited to attend the service. They were expecting to see God work.  The normally deserted church was full of people, between the people in purple, the folks from church and the handful of special agents.

On one hand, I thought it was brilliant...with so many people there, the terrorists could not plant their explosives without being seen. But on the other, I was worried that they would feel threatened and blow up/ shoot up the place with the people in it.  But as the service started, the poor clergyman was at a loss at having so many people, and the folks from our church took up a worship song and just began singing and praying.  One by one, they all went over and embraced one of the people in purple, praying over them.

The terrorists were completely rattled by this and didn't know how to deal with it.  Most of them slipped out and away but a few of them actually stayed with the church group and returned to the US with them, ending their relationship with the terrorist group.  Then I woke up.

Here's what struck me about the dream...the church was old.  Neglected, nearly abandoned.  The 'terrorists' were, by and large, kids between the ages of 12 - 16, with just a few adults as leaders. They seemed to want to avoid harming people, but they did want to destroy the old church. The folks who came from our church were not pastors or leaders, just regular folks who attend Sunday Services.  Some of them were even rather irregular attenders.  The actions of those regular folks...caring for and praying for the people in purple... routed the threat and even reduced the opposing force...which was mostly comprised of kids who had been radicalized.   I have no idea if the color purple was significant, lol.

I am pondering this one today...

All Things New: New Study

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Last week I had a dream; kind of a variation on the school dream...y'know, the one in which you suddenly realize that you are a week from finals and you forgot to go to class for the entire semester.

Only this dream wasn't about school, per se, it was about a Bible study at church that was to be taught online.  It had been publicized and had folks signed up.  And it wouldn't have been a big deal that I forgot...only I was the teacher.  The day after the first class was to have happened, I suddenly realized that I had missed the introductory live chat scheduled for the night before with all the folks who were signed up for the study.

I woke up pondering that.  Aside from the look at Holy Week, which was just a short daily deal, I haven't done a study since last fall's look at the Hebrew words for praise, largely because I was neck-deep in our prayer ministry school.

But one of the main reasons I started Beer Lahai Roi was to put a demand on the teaching anointing.   When I wrote that first post in April of 2008, I was just a helper/filler-inner in the Friends Club...I didn't see the lead teacher position that was waiting on me in just a couple of months.  When the fall came, I was solidly in that position and had plenty demand on the teacher in me.

But now I am back at the place I was in the spring of '08.  Maybe even farther back, as I was at least filling in as a teacher then.  Now...for this immediate season...there is nothing.

So last week, I dreamed that I had neglected my online study.

It's time to get it cranked up here.

I've been pondering all week what I should do for a study...pick a book of the Bible?  A character?  A theme?

It was the idea of a theme that resonated...2015 is a year of new beginnings...and I suddenly thought about a look at new beginnings in Scripture.  How many folks experienced transition from something to something...and how did they handle it?

I thought of several immediately.

So.  This is probably  not going to be heavy on the revvy or deep in any way, but I'm going to use the next however many Fridays to take a stroll through Scripture and look at folks who found themselves in a place of new beginnings, where the old paradigms were out the window and new, unexplored territory lay before them.

I haven't done a syllabus...it's going to be something of an unplanned journey.  We'll start in Genesis and see what we encounter along the way.

Join me for 'All Things New'...

School Dreams...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Ok, I've done 4 Bible-study catch up posts in a row; think I'm gonna catch my breath and talk about something else.

School dreams.

Not the 'oh, I have a dream of someday returning to school and becoming a ____' kinda dreams, I'm talking dreaming at night about being in school and forgetting to go to class or being unprepared for a test or, like the one I had last night, not remembering WHICH class I'm supposed to be at now or WHERE it is or even WHERE my locker is and, oh, I can't remember the combination...how can I get my books and notes and the things I need for the class I know I'm supposed to be at someplace???

Sometimes it's high school...sometimes it's college and it's right before finals and I suddenly remember that I should've been going to class for the last 10 weeks...

I always wake up tense and frustrated.

And wondering if there's something I'm forgetting to do or overlooking.

I think this is pretty common; I know several of my friends have told me that they have dreams like that, too.
 
 I really hadn't taken vacation last year, working more than my part-time hours and then working at home, stashing comp time, trying to get stuff done for the data base transfer or get things running afterwards. The rest of life was kinda on hold.  But I had an extended Christmas break, using as much vacation time as I could before it went away on the 31st...and I had plans to work on stuff that had been postponed.

But we got sick.  For the entire break and then some. Nothing got caught up.  Nothing.

I'm wondering if the frustrating school dream is connected to the fact that I feel behind in everything.

Yesterday I spent some time on a volunteer job that was behind; I had a plan to tackle that in a couple of weeks, but because I was getting some pressure to get on top of it now I spent about 4 hours doing what I could to fix things up a bit.  Oh, it was appreciated, and I guess I'm glad to have the ball rolling there, but... well... I'm still behind on a lot.

And I'm having trouble figuring out which behind project needs attention most.

What class am I supposed to be at?  Where is it?

So...I know this sounds whiney, and it really isn't meant to.  Just trying to run down the source of the lost and confused and pressured feeling that expressed itself in a dream last night. I think it's interesting to see how real life percolates around and turns up in dreams.

Morning Chuckle

Posted By Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Sometimes a really creepy dream has almost a funny meaning...

Last night I dreamed I was in an old...barn, house or basement, not sure which.  It was dark, dusty and cluttered up and I had a flashlight that I was using to hunt for something.

At one point, I thought I heard scampering of rodents, then I was sure I didn't, then I thought I did again...anyway, I swung the flashlight around a couple of times and froze when they lit up a pair of teeny glowing red eyes looking at me.

Wherever-I-was, there were rats.

However, before I could really react, I found that there were a couple of people there, too,...confused, lost, hungry and exhausted.  I had to get the folks out of there before we could deal with the rats.

I woke up feeling rather creepy...then suddenly I realized what the dream was about and had to laugh.

We are migrating our data base at church from one software company to another and I am the one primarily responsible for it.  I've been frantically cleaning out old useless records...but every once in a while I will hit  a valid record amongst the list of messed up ones, so I can't just delete all of the old records.

Yes, the old barn was the data base...the rats are the old, useless records and the confused folks are the good records with the errors.

So plain.  :-)

Oh. You mean me.

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi.

Our current topic in Friends Club is 'self esteem'...but we have some adolescent drama that is smoldering in the background and, instead of doing the intended teaching on self esteem, I found myself telling the following story...which I thought I had posted here, but an extended search did not turn it up, so here goes...

Back in the day, I was the youth leader in a very small church.  We had our share of adolescent drama then, too, and I remembered one young lady who was very easily offended, often by folks she didn't even have actual contact with, because they happened to scowl in her direction, or some such thing.   I assume that by now she has outgrown that...but I am not in a position to know.

However, a year or two or three ago, I had a dream that I was back in that position, planning a major youth trip.  And this particular young lady showed up wanting to go.  However, she had with her a large package of Pull Ups, as (remember, I was dreaming) she was not yet potty trained.  At age 16 or 17.  She just couldn't be bothered.

I remember that I was absolutely flabbergasted...not just because she was not yet potty trained, but because she expected to go along with us and make all of us deal with the issue.  Of course, I told her that she could not possibly go along with us unless she made up her mind to deal with her, um, issues in a more, um, mature fashion.  

She was upset, but, because she wanted to go on the trip, she reluctantly agreed.

Then I woke up.

I was really surprised at it; I hadn't thought of this particular child in a long time, really, and I didn't know why I would dream about her in that fashion.

Then I remembered something from the class I had on dreams and their interpretation...that a dream about another person really isn't about the other person...it's about me.

Suddenly, the whole dream took on a new shape.

It wasn't the youngster who had maturity issues...it was me.  There were (are?) areas in my life that I am not dealing with in a mature fashion...and I cannot go where God wants to take me unless I pull myself together and deal with it.    Put on the big girl panties, as I have heard in many places and fits this scenario extraordinarily well.

Of course, that applied to the drama in the classroom, but I have to ask myself...does it still apply to me?  Am I STILL refusing to deal with issues that are keeping me from going forward?

HHmmm......

Dancing myself awake...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

On a lighter note...

I don't work on Fridays; our church offices are closed (currently - that's about to change back to a 5-day week but since I'm part time I likely will still not work Fridays) so I normally turn off the alarm and give myself a sleep-in day; My Sweet Baboo handles getting the One Remaining Student to her bus stop.

But I forgot to turn off the alarm yesterday and it went off as usual.  I keep it set to a local contemporary Christian station; normally the chatter with the morning show folks is what I hear.

But this time, a song happened to be playing -- Chris Tomlin's 'Indescribable' (this is the best video I could find on You-tube; sorry..)




But... I didn't wake up.

I dreamed I was in a warm, flowery field and this song was, like, the soundtrack coming from nowhere and everywhere and I just let go and danced.

I'm not a dancer by any stretch of the imagination, mind you, but in my dream I danced and danced...sorta like Snoopy.

When the song ended and the morning hosts began to chat, I woke up and realized what had happened and turned off the radio.  But I woke up smiling.

And it's been a rough...week.  Can't always help when I want to, you know.  Some things just have to be walked out.  So dancing with joy was a gift to me.

I've always rather liked that song...we sing it in church...but it is not at the tip top of my list.  Still...I will always smile when it comes up again.

And maybe someday I'll find a field and dance. ;-)

Cleaning House?

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I wrote this post ages ago, intending to start a series/discussion about dreams and their significance, then never posted another thing about it.

Maybe it was just a little closer to the nerve than I realized.

But I thought I'd take up that gauntlet again; part of the 'dare to be transparent' thing I'm working on. So I'll talk about a recent dream.

As in, day-before-yesterday. As in, I'm still chewing on it...

Now, truth be told here (and I've really not made any secret of it), house keeping is not my long suit. And, since I've started working, it's gotten even worse (realized just before lunch that today was my one-year anniversary of being an employee...). Anyway. The house is a wreck.

Well, in this dream, it was even worse than it is in real life. And I and my Sweet Baboo were looking at it and at each other, wondering how it had gotten so bad and how on earth we were going to get it back to presentable, when he looked out the window and saw a van from our church pull into the drive.

And a number of our pastors got out and headed into the house through the garage.

Panicked...shamed...horrified...exposed. Yet, on some level, I was almost glad that they saw me at the worst. I didn't feel like I had anything to hide anymore.

And they weren't at all judgmental. In fact, one of them got a bucket and a brush and knelt down and began scrubbing my kitchen floor. I was mortified, but she looked at me and said something to the effect of 'When you need help, you need help.'

The humiliation I felt turned into simply being overwhelmingly humbled.

Today, in staff prayer, our Pastor made a statement in which he said something to the effect of, 'We are not capable of cleaning up our own lives.' (wish I'd written it down!)

And I thought of my dream...the mess that I was incapable of dealing with, and how I had to humble myself to allow someone else to clean it.

Before Pastor called us together for corporate prayer, I had been writing in my journal about my frustration with dealing with my own character flaws. And I saw the connection; I can't fix my character flaws by an act of will; I have to yield them to God to reshape...cleanse...renew. And I not only have to be patient while He does it in His fashion, I have to believe that He is working on it even if I don't see any evidence of it.

I just have to continue to pursue Him.

Whaddya Think About Dreams?

Ok, I'm not talking about those secret dreams of life goals; I'm talking about dreams that come when you're sleeping.

Sometimes I remember dreams, sometimes I don't. Sometimes a dream is burned into my brain and it bugs me.

I've got a notebook in which I record the dreams that I wake up thinking about...at least, most of them. There are one or two creepy ones that I remember but can't bring myself to record on paper.

I have a couple of 'scenario' dreams that repeat with slight variations.

Some folks say dreams are just the brain discharging; others say dreams are a subconscious way to deal with issues we aren't facing...and there's an application for prophetic dreaming, too.

I kinda think it's all of the above at one time or another.

I *don't* think someone can make blanket statements about what symbols mean in dreams. It's too personal...what symbolizes A to someone may symbolize B to someone else.

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw the topic out for further discussion later. I may even write about some of the dreams I had and what I concluded from them...or, how perplexed I am by them.

At the very least, that opens up a whole 'nuther souce for blog post material! ;)