Me vs It
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It’s 2 AM. Last night I had a dream. It was a mystery dream, a crime being solved and a perpetrator caught. Some civilized animals were attempting in their humorously inadequate ways to catch a mysterious thief. They would devise some elaborate scheme, see it falling to ruin, and then the scene would freeze, and back up to 10 or 15 minutes earlier in the story, with the possibility of changing the events and the unsuccessful outcome. It was an amusing dream, and I watched as it moved progressively backwards from after midnight to early evening to the preceding dusk. I saw a mouse and a spider perched on a bookshelf/nook, ready to catch the thief, but he came at them from behind, from through a crack in the wall behind their perch. The scene froze and backed up. I saw a possum dropping an elaborate net onto the roof of a car, where it left a mark, showing that the trap would work. Yet, the culprit came at the bait another way and the possum fumbled with the branch and dropped it wrong anyway. A large lizard, who tried to investigate, almost caught the culprit, who turned out to be much more than he could handle.
Then, I saw the thief itself, a mixed up creature at first, as shadowy things often are in dreams. It clarified before my eyes, it seemed, and I saw that it was feline, perhaps a leopard or a large cheetah, but with a sort of disguise on it, a piece of which it shed so I could see it more clearly. It looked at me (the observer) directly in the eye, with a terrible intelligence, and the dream no longer froze or backed up. I knew that no lucidity on my part could make it do so. The thief had stolen over the dream.
In a moment, almost before I knew she was there, I saw Gracey (our small cheweenie dog) run up and sit down right next to the beast. She looked at me with her doggy smile. She but did not seem to see the beast, but the beast certainly saw her. I yelled for Gracey to flee; I tried to warn her that she had put herself in danger, but the cat was too fast. In a flash, it had Gracey in her mouth, tail first, and then (when it seemed too late) Gracey knew her danger. I heard her yelp, and then, being so small, she slipped even further down the feline throat as she struggled. This caused the beast to hesitate for a spilt-second.
I stopped observing! The evil creature had called me into the story with its eye-contact, its mocking challenge before the vicious attack on Gracey, and I slid on that connection into the scene. I crossed the distance in half the time it should have taken, and before the beast could bite down even once more on my dog I had my hands in its mouth. I stood over it, my hands inside its jaws, my palms against the razor-sharp teeth. I grabbed those jaws, and in a single motion, broke them open. The lower jaw of the beast snapped in my right hand. I knew the teeth had pieced my hands deeply, even in my dream, I knew. But my heart raced, and I paid no attention to the razors in my palms than I did to the slashing claws as the creature fought against me with all four paws, indeed with every muscle in his body. I pulled my right hand from the clinging lower jaw and grabbed Gracey on the scruff of her neck, pulling her out of the throat of the monster with my bloody hand.
I was then in two places at once. On one side, I fought the beast, gouging out its eyes, breaking its neck, and swinging it three times into a tree. At the same time, however, I attended to Gracey, wounded and scared, she was all my focus on that side; the beast had been discarded and forgotten by that side. Gracey was saved and that was enough. I held her in my bloody hands, and she was more alive and more like a human person in that moment than ever before. I felt her healing, growing, becoming more like she might have been if our sin had not subjected all of creation in the Fall.
A passage of a Scripture came to my mind, even as the creature died, Gracey lived, and I woke. Even as I woke and reached over to check on Gracey as she lay in the bed between Olivia and myself, it echoed in my conscious thought, and I believe even as it came to me that it changed into a thought from God: “I have killed both the lion and the bear.” I hesitate to quote more, because that is all I can be sure I heard in that moment. The context is, of course, David’s conversation with King Saul before taking on Goliath. In 1 Samuel 17:
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, 35 I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 Moreover David said, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Then, I remembered the words of Jesus: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.” (John 10:10-12)
Then I felt the meaning of the dream: It was love. It was love for Gracey that drew me across time and space to break the jaws of the beast and rescue her. It was love that woke me to check on her as she lay safe in the bed beside me. It was David’s love for his sheep that led him to grab the lion and the bear by the head and save the ram, ewe, or lamb from its jaws. It could have been nothing less than love, for nothing less could have given him the strength to do it or the will to see it through. And, finally, it was love for me (his lost sheep) that led Jesus to pierce his hands and tear open the jaws of death for my sake. It was love for me that drew him across time and space (or into them) in order to save me. It was love.
My heart breaks with joy to understand even the smallest glimpse of what it means for Jesus to be The Good Shepherd. My dream was a gift, a terrible gift. It was a glimpse into the very heart of God, and I didn’t even realize it until it was over. It was reassurance of His love for me, and of His love in me. I pray my heart will never forget it, though I wouldn’t dream it again for all the world. “I have killed both the lion and the bear.” And, He has done so for me.
.
It’s 2 AM. Last night I had a dream. It was a mystery dream, a crime being solved and a perpetrator caught. Some civilized animals were attempting in their humorously inadequate ways to catch a mysterious thief. They would devise some elaborate scheme, see it falling to ruin, and then the scene would freeze, and back up to 10 or 15 minutes earlier in the story, with the possibility of changing the events and the unsuccessful outcome. It was an amusing dream, and I watched as it moved progressively backwards from after midnight to early evening to the preceding dusk. I saw a mouse and a spider perched on a bookshelf/nook, ready to catch the thief, but he came at them from behind, from through a crack in the wall behind their perch. The scene froze and backed up. I saw a possum dropping an elaborate net onto the roof of a car, where it left a mark, showing that the trap would work. Yet, the culprit came at the bait another way and the possum fumbled with the branch and dropped it wrong anyway. A large lizard, who tried to investigate, almost caught the culprit, who turned out to be much more than he could handle.
Then, I saw the thief itself, a mixed up creature at first, as shadowy things often are in dreams. It clarified before my eyes, it seemed, and I saw that it was feline, perhaps a leopard or a large cheetah, but with a sort of disguise on it, a piece of which it shed so I could see it more clearly. It looked at me (the observer) directly in the eye, with a terrible intelligence, and the dream no longer froze or backed up. I knew that no lucidity on my part could make it do so. The thief had stolen over the dream.
In a moment, almost before I knew she was there, I saw Gracey (our small cheweenie dog) run up and sit down right next to the beast. She looked at me with her doggy smile. She but did not seem to see the beast, but the beast certainly saw her. I yelled for Gracey to flee; I tried to warn her that she had put herself in danger, but the cat was too fast. In a flash, it had Gracey in her mouth, tail first, and then (when it seemed too late) Gracey knew her danger. I heard her yelp, and then, being so small, she slipped even further down the feline throat as she struggled. This caused the beast to hesitate for a spilt-second.
I stopped observing! The evil creature had called me into the story with its eye-contact, its mocking challenge before the vicious attack on Gracey, and I slid on that connection into the scene. I crossed the distance in half the time it should have taken, and before the beast could bite down even once more on my dog I had my hands in its mouth. I stood over it, my hands inside its jaws, my palms against the razor-sharp teeth. I grabbed those jaws, and in a single motion, broke them open. The lower jaw of the beast snapped in my right hand. I knew the teeth had pieced my hands deeply, even in my dream, I knew. But my heart raced, and I paid no attention to the razors in my palms than I did to the slashing claws as the creature fought against me with all four paws, indeed with every muscle in his body. I pulled my right hand from the clinging lower jaw and grabbed Gracey on the scruff of her neck, pulling her out of the throat of the monster with my bloody hand.
I was then in two places at once. On one side, I fought the beast, gouging out its eyes, breaking its neck, and swinging it three times into a tree. At the same time, however, I attended to Gracey, wounded and scared, she was all my focus on that side; the beast had been discarded and forgotten by that side. Gracey was saved and that was enough. I held her in my bloody hands, and she was more alive and more like a human person in that moment than ever before. I felt her healing, growing, becoming more like she might have been if our sin had not subjected all of creation in the Fall.
A passage of a Scripture came to my mind, even as the creature died, Gracey lived, and I woke. Even as I woke and reached over to check on Gracey as she lay in the bed between Olivia and myself, it echoed in my conscious thought, and I believe even as it came to me that it changed into a thought from God: “I have killed both the lion and the bear.” I hesitate to quote more, because that is all I can be sure I heard in that moment. The context is, of course, David’s conversation with King Saul before taking on Goliath. In 1 Samuel 17:
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, 35 I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 Moreover David said, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Then, I remembered the words of Jesus: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.” (John 10:10-12)
Then I felt the meaning of the dream: It was love. It was love for Gracey that drew me across time and space to break the jaws of the beast and rescue her. It was love that woke me to check on her as she lay safe in the bed beside me. It was David’s love for his sheep that led him to grab the lion and the bear by the head and save the ram, ewe, or lamb from its jaws. It could have been nothing less than love, for nothing less could have given him the strength to do it or the will to see it through. And, finally, it was love for me (his lost sheep) that led Jesus to pierce his hands and tear open the jaws of death for my sake. It was love for me that drew him across time and space (or into them) in order to save me. It was love.
My heart breaks with joy to understand even the smallest glimpse of what it means for Jesus to be The Good Shepherd. My dream was a gift, a terrible gift. It was a glimpse into the very heart of God, and I didn’t even realize it until it was over. It was reassurance of His love for me, and of His love in me. I pray my heart will never forget it, though I wouldn’t dream it again for all the world. “I have killed both the lion and the bear.” And, He has done so for me.
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