Night/Dawn

Last night I had a peculiar dream....

Göran and I were in the back seat of a car. We were being driven; I was not at the wheel, not in control of where we were going. The person at the wheel was V.W. the (former, though in my dream still current) choir director of Lyndale United Church of Christ. She was (naturally) taking us to a choir rehearsal. She drove us to the parking lot of a church, and then we began the search for a parking place. Not any parking place, but the parking place that was specially reserved specifically for us. We couldn't find it, so we knew this church was not the place where we were supposed to go to choir rehearsal. So we went on to the next potential rehearsal site, a school. Similarly there we could not find our place, so on to the next place, and so on and on. In my dream we never did find the right choir rehearsal. But before waking up, I found myself explaining to Göran that almost every church choir rehearsal in the world always took place the Wednesday or Thursday before a particular Sunday.

There is a dawn coming. There is a certain bridegroom coming to receive his bride. And we are waiting. For us gay Christians, waiting for the bridegroom, and waiting to find our rightful place, the place reserved for us, the place that designates us as rightful heirs to the kingdom along with everyone else, for us those two waitings are the same. And woe to those who would keep us out, because the bridegroom is coming.

Göran and I were not in the driver's seat in my dream, because, as is true for every human being, as is true of the human condition, we are not fully in control of our destiny. All we can do is prepare ourselves. We can make sure we're in the car, on the road, on the search, doing the best we can to get there. But there's only so much we can control, and then we must learn to patiently wait. There's a peace that comes from learning that. (About which I want to post more later....)

After recording my dream and saying my morning prayers, and reflecting on my place in the Universe... As I do every weekday morning I knocked on Glen's bedroom door to make sure he was awake for school before I left. Glen was already awake, which was unusual. As I wished him well for the day and gave him a hug goodbye, there were tears in his eyes.

"Is there something wrong with me?" he asked, his voice cracking.

Talk about a way to break a parent's heart.

I stopped. I thought about the question for a moment. Where was this coming from? "Nothing that's not wrong with every other teenager in the world," I replied smiling.

"I had a terrible dream..." he said. And then he recounted to me a dream of the fulfillment of his worst fear, his fear of losing everything. It was the nightmare that he has been living over and over again for the last three years of his life.

"Nothing's wrong with you," I said, "You just had that nightmare because that's your worst fear. But that's not going to happen. Göran and I will never let that happen."

We hugged again, and this time he was comforted and there were tears of gratitude. "Thank you," he said, "Thank you!"

That was amazing too. A teen saying "Thank you."

"See you after school," I said.

I marveled as I left the house (just before sunrise now, thanks to the shifting seasons) how we are all waiting; how our waiting is reflected in our dreams. Waiting for fears to recede, waiting for the night to end; waiting for Sunday, waiting for the choir performance (no more rehearsals!), for the bridegroom, for our place in the kingdom of God....

Patiently waiting!