Ignoring the dream; jazz doodling times 3: Bobby Broom, Clifford Brown, Melissa Aldana

Jazz: Bobby Broom Song and Dance. Jazz Doodle: Wayne Stratz

Saturday: I had a thought that this summer was a prime time to do some random card giving at work.

Saturday night: I had a dream in which my supervisor at work chastised me for handing out cards to unsuspecting souls.

I started drawing cards since the dream made no sense.

Check out the jazz artists:  Bobby Broom, Clifford Brown, Melissa Aldana

Jazz: Clifford Brown Complete Blue Note. Jazz Doodle: Wayne Stratz

Jazz: Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio. Jazz Doodle: Wayne Stratz

an examen of my dream life, from the man who rarely remembers a dream

In my last post, I spoke of a fortune cookie telling me I was headed toward a career change. After some dreams this weekend, I am trying to sense what God desires.

dream one... I am directed to a location away from the school. I am with a group of folk who I do not recognize. Then a friend who was laid-off last August tells all of us we have worked our last day. As I am leaving the room, I stop. I am curious as to why I am being told this, since I don't work there. He says, "The school wanted me to tell you." I wake up.

A few minutes later I am back into the dream... I enter my classroom and it has been stripped clean. All my clutter gone. So are the plants. I wake up.

Later that day, I joke that I need to seek counsel from a fortune teller to make sense of these dreams. Mosaic Woman responds, "Do you remember what happened to King Saul?" I do.

Last night I dream again... I am at work and a friend of many years approaches and hands me a card. I say, "Wow." I am staring at page after page of birthday wishes from all the folk I have worked with at the school. I wake up.

Then it dawns on me to take these prayers in an examen. what were the primary emotions were stirred by...

the fortune cookie... curiosity
being laid off... sadness
my empty classroom... despair
a card filled with kindness... joy

and that is all I will say.

...

deeper places 1- a dream of a diner takes me to staff meetings

Never since my first 8 day retreat have I entered so quickly into feeling connected with God. I give credit to all who sent me off with their prayers, and maybe my desire.

"Use your imagination," spoken early by my director, leads to a week long colloquy... well that's what the priest in the parking lot called it, when I was having my unexpected last experience of the retreat.

I realized how rare it is has become for me to imagine God's voice when I start a conversation in prayer. It can be exhausting. It can lead to awe.

The first morning I woke up hearing a shower and thought, "Wow, Mosaic Woman is up early." I then realized I had started a retreat. The next night I actually experienced a dream, well the strange part was remembering it... We are in a diner. We tire of waiting and go outside. We come back in and discover they thought we had left and have thrown our food out. I hear the distress of the waitress as we leave.

My director asks if this could be related to my work, could you be someone other than yourself in the dream.

Later in prayer I think of two meetings in which a program and reps of that program were being treated in ways that were not filled with hope, peace, joy, and love. I spoke, but not much and not early. Often I don't speak at all. I saw myself as the waitress who wants to bring nourishment but is late. If I want a world filled with hope, joy, peace, and love.... then I guess I am going to have to nourish and defend those who are trying to do the same. The next day I say, "I don't want to be thrown in a cistern like Jeremiah."

two hours later I hear the Gospel... the beheading of John the Baptist. Given the choice I will go with the cistern and find out who my friends are.

...

Mice might have stirred

It was the night before Christmas and I was with Jesus and the evil presence that tempted him in the desert.

My first thought was that it was the wrong place to be.... shouldn't I be in Bethlehem? But spending the night with Jesus was the place to be and no matter where the spiritual exercises landed me on 12/24/07 ... it was the place I was directed to be.


I remember Jesus being guided to the desert by the spirit the entered him at the Jordan, but I don't recall the spirit directing him so that he could face temptation. Have I been guided to those places I did not choose Jesus? Other stories in the Bible would have that evil spirit guiding us to those places.

Could this dream be about choosing Jesus, or about trying to do too many things, or about my fear of administrators...

My dream... I was teaching and I showed up for work. The students and staff were current but location may have been more like where I grew up and/or a place I taught in Illinois. Instead of going into the middle school to help run the science fair I went into the high school to participate in a three day spiritual retreat. I had best intentions of also being at the science fair, but...

I left the retreat and ran into students and staff who listed important people who searched for me all day. The pleasant feeling I had at being at the retreat faded and I walked in dread towards where I would tell my supervisor what happened....

woke before I got there kind of like waking before you hit the ground.

any dream interpreters out there?

any stained glass design interpreters out there.... here is my latest finished earlier today