Dreams

I had a dream last night.

I don’t usually remember my dreams.  And the ones I do usually revolve around the embarrassing situations where I forget to put on pants or when I have to speak in front of large crowds with nothing prepared.  Or I get the ones where I am falling, endlessly falling, to some place far below me.  Or I am losing my teeth, and I thus have an macabre fascination (in my dream) on wiggling and removing the rotting things.
No, this was more of a story.  And I’m labeling it under testimonials because I truly think that there is some merit to it.  Not that it is a proper testimony, but still holds truth.

I enter a church.  It’s grand, like old school medieval grand.  White and red and gold and wonderfully dark brown stained wood.  There’s this balcony in the front of the room, a rather plain looking thing with bare walls.  Details are hazy.  But I remember that this place instilled awe and wonder in me.  And I remember being in the pew with my family, with hundreds of other people in front of us.  I was in th last pew.
And this is when it gets a bit weird.  The pews were all facing backwards.  So, in order to see the front, one would have to twist uncomfortably in their seat in order to see.  Not that the pews were uncomfortable, I believe there were cushions on them, but it was uncomfortable to turn around to see the front.
And this preacher man goes to the front to open the service.  He’s dressed lavishly, in white and gold.  He’s an older gent.  White hair and wrinkles and crinkles around the eyes and that kind of thing.  He speaks warmly and kindly.  He invites us to worship together.  He then leaves the room via the center row.  And he passes me.
Now, what’s important to note here is that I was sitting on the pew properly, and not sitting all twisted up like a Twizzler.  And he leans in, and whispers to me.
“How come you aren’t looking towards the front?”
And I get this chill.  Like this is wrong, like this is horribly wrong.
“Because it’s uncomfortable.”
He gives me this dirty look before continuing on his way.
That’s when I thought that things are wrong.  That’s when I thought that this wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  There was something odd here, and I wanted to know more.
Remember that this is a dream.  So I was able to keep on sitting there in the pew, not conforming to what the preacher man wanted, and I was able to follow the preacher man to a tiny room close by.  And he was trying to coordinate the worship slides with a woman up there.  And on the screen we saw a pair of young men starting up worship.  And there was hurried conversation about how to make the service go well, and that’s when I instantly understood.
These people were so strung up with making the service good, that they were missing the point.  It was their first service for this church, and they wanted it to be perfect.  Only that they were missing out on the point of the whole service.  I mean, even the pews were backwards.
My out of body dream self went to this other small room, where this pair of young men were playing.  They were being projected, and I could see that they were in fact on the plain balcony.  When I got closer I could see that there were four of them in all, two of them not seen through the projector screen.  And they began to play music.
But it was dry, and robotic and not genuine.
I remember urging them to have fun, to praise God with everything.  And I remember them doing that, experimenting as they played and they began to really worship God with their hearts.  And I remember the crowd starting to go wild with their excitement and their joy.
And then I woke up.

And it’s stuck with me, hours and hours after I woke up this morning.  And what does it mean?  Why have this dream?  Maybe, just maybe, it’s a sign to watch out for those little details.  Because if we get caught up in the act of worship and praise, we lose sight of the heart of worship and praise.  If we work so hard to keeping the setting perfect we can easily forget that we are in fact backwards in our passions.  And when things go wrong, instead of adjusting and realizing our mistakes, we can lash out and respond negatively.

Just something to think about.