My Weird Dreams And A Hope For Reconciliation

Dreams. They're weird for me. Always have been. I don't have normal ones. Maybe you do. If you do, you're lucky.

I've got several theories about how they work and I'll get to them in a minute. Theory means that I don't have a clue why or what dreams are.

I have several recurring dreams that have nothing to do with this blog post - or do they? I dream about midgets on occasion. Or little people. Apologies if I'm using the wrong terminology. Typically, they come bearing advice or I'm having a casual conversation with them.

I dream about driving off the road a lot. I'm usually at a busy intersection and for some reason, I just let go of the wheel and the car goes off into a tree or a ditch. I either wake up, or survive the wreck and steer back onto the road.

The worst dream I ever had was when I was five. I'll never forget it. I watched from my room as Santa (who was coincidentally a midget) walked into my parents room and poisoned them with a green gas he sprayed from a garden sprayer. He did it while looking at me and smiling. Yeah, it was not good.

Lately, I've been dreaming that I'm in the right place at the right time to stop a crime. Like an accidental superhero. That's about as positive as my dreams ever get. If I'm really, really lucky, I won't dream at all.

However, ever since I committed adultery at Angel Falls which led to broken relationships with my ex-wife's family and the whole church, I've been having awful dreams. I have them just about every night. In each dream there's a church member or a member of Angelica's family. I typically dream of church members, almost always Phillip Townsend. When I first started having the dreams, I'd be arguing with them or they'd yell at me. At times, they'd stand there and stare distainfully at me.

As time has gone by, the dreams have gotten "happier", if you will. For instance, recently, I dreamed I was standing outside a grocery store renting movies from a Redbox. Up walked one of the deacons and his wife. They started talking to me with kindness. Behind them were another deacon and his wife and several other couples from church. Each couple was nice, but somewhere, deep in my heart I knew two things: One, they were shocked at running into me and didn't really like me. Two, I was ashamed of myself still and wanted to run away. So it wasn't a happy dream at all.

I've actually run into one of the deacons in my dream recently. I went out of my way to talk to him. We made small talk and it was okay. I had my girls with me. He was uncomfortable, but I felt a little better about being seen in public.

The dreams are getting old. What's my theory? I think that when we sleep, our unconscious mind works through things that our conscious mind pushes away. Sometimes, it presents them as a weird picture. Sometimes it's frightening. But our minds don't rest. I think that our minds are wanting to work free of the stress that we place on ourselves and they try to unwind at night. Is there a portion of it where God is at work? Sure, God is sovereign over all things.

So, late last week I got sick of it. That, and I got humbled after talking to the man who will probably be our new pastor. I'll blog about that later.

I made a phone call to one of Angelica's brothers. I apologized to him for what I did to her and the drama it caused to their family. I told him I knew that he had to explain it to his young children and humbled myself to him. He received it graciously. I knew I could call him because he's just like that. The other members of her family probably wouldn't answer the phone, so I wrote letters, including her parents. I told her what I was doing before I did it.

Today, I made a phone call. It was a hard phone call to make. Phillip Townsend. If you've read this blog at all, you know it was hard. I hurt Angel Falls with my sin and he didn't handle the situation well either. However, if I hadn't sinned, he wouldn't have been in that position. We have some talking to do.

I talked to his wife for a few minutes and she was kind to me. He was out and she said he'd call back. So, I'm sitting here waiting for him to call back so we can meet. All I want is to show humility to him and put this behind us. Surely, two Christian men can do that for the sake of Christ.

And then maybe these dreams will go away.