DRAPER'S PAPER ROUTE
DREAMS
by Adam Carroll Draper
The whole idea of having a blog began with a dream I had of my dad telling me, “Thou shalt start a paper route.” I still only have an inkling of what that meant, but I threatened in that first scribbling to talk about dreams. Well, I had another dream that involved this blog, so I figured that now is as good a time as any. As a general disclaimer: my perspective on dreams is necessarily spiritual, so if you are not interested in that point of view, you can skip the rest of this.
Remember what Cinderella thought about dreams? “A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i8XVQ2pswg&app=desktop There is a lot of truth to that since the heart is roughly synonymous with the spirit. We are not just “this crude matter” we live in, as Yoda explained to Luke Skywalker. “Luminous beings are we.” Before I start offending church people by treating Cinderella and Yoda seriously, I am just offering perspective. Proverbs 20:27 says “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly.” We are light.
We are spirits, who live in bodies. Our consciousness, which I am going to call soul here, presides between the two realities – spiritual and physical. Our experience in this physical reality can make the eternal, spiritual reality difficult to discern, as the Indigo Girls sang in “Closer to Fine, “darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable and lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” I am painting with a fairly broad brush, but basically dreams are our spirits’ metaphors to our souls to keep us tuned into what is really going on in our lives. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we can expect to be led by Him. Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Dreams are a way He does that. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” (John 10:27). OK, what does his voice sound like?
Our spirits use dreams to get our souls to hear. Usually (but clearly not always), dreams are about now. I generally start from that point of view to try to figure out what my spirit is trying to get my consciousness to comprehend. I have found that the meaning of a dream is generally contained in an instantaneous flow of emotion or a sense impression just as I am waking up or in the moment I first recall the dream.
In the dream I had this week (the occasion for this missive), a member of the Yellow Vest movement in Paris asked me to write a blog in which I would give them advice on how to move forward. They were concerned about the damage they were inflicting in the name of forcing change. The man was particularly concerned with danger he felt they posed to Jews in Paris. I was somewhat incredulous as to how they even knew about this blog, given that many people who are very close to me don’t even know about it (which is my bad). And I was certainly mystified as to why the Yellow Vests would care what I thought. Nevertheless, it seemed very important in the dream that I do as asked. I specifically recall wondering if I should write about what I felt was really happening, namely that there is a deliberate attempt to flood Europe with non-western people to create violent upheaval in order to provide the basis to impose authoritarianism upon them, through which the very tenor of European society would be changed. I woke up thinking that I should write about this dream this week. The clearest emotion or sense I associated with the dream was concern for the people of Paris, particularly Jewish people. But there was a concomitant sense that something had to be said, and that I needed to push past my reticence to do so.
The dream could certainly be seen as some sort of warning, but it did not really contain any new information for my consideration. It does, however, point to several more eternal concerns that focus my present action. Without belaboring this or going into too much annoying detail, I understand this dream in general as an exhortation to remember what is important, meaning that I must not forget why I am alive – the mission. Part of this mission is writing, which brings me a good deal of happiness. That part (the happiness part) is huge.
What does Jesus’ voice sound like? It sounds like those irreducibly awesome things that life is really about: love, peace, joy, hope, faith, kindness, beauty, truth, unity. That’s how I know it is Him. To what am I being exhorted? The answer to the question tends to reveal the spirit in which I am acting or with which I am agreeing. God sounds like those things we cannot define, but we recognize His voice in those aspects of Him that we do know, particularly because the scripture makes them certain. We recognize Him in truth (since He is the truth) - in things like “love cannot fail” and “hope endures forever.”
Dreams help focus us on the truth - the prescience of eternity.
If you got something out of this missive, please give it a thumbs up (or some such thing), comment on it, and/or share it. It helps. I really appreciate that you took the time to read this!