Dreaming

“I’m not evil.”

The words awoke me as they left my mouth.

Brenda stirred, awakened by my strange statement in the middle of the night.

“You’re not evil. You’re a good man.”

It was comforting. Comforting words from her have been rare.

That afternoon she told my I am "too good."

“You can’t be too good,” I said.

“Yes you can.”

“No, you can’t be too good. And I’m certainly not too good. I have far too many flaws, have made too many mistakes.”

“No you haven’t, and you are too good.”

Is that possible? It isn’t a matter of being perfect. Only one man achieved that. But perhaps I have made her feel she is worse than she is by my hesitations in drinking, partying, by seeking to be obedient.

Lately we have been going to a local tavern for pool and beer. It has been fun. Somewhat.

I had another dream last night.

I was in charge of a new construction work site. There was a house nearly finished, and I noticed water bubbling from the soil under the foundation. It began to stream down the little hill, turning the dirt to mud.

I grabbed a shovel and started digging, seeking the pipe that was leaking.

The water picked up in volume, the dirt churning away. There were lumps in the water, I realized it was a broken septic line.

I kept digging, searching for the broken clay pipe, the four inch line that was gushing water, tissues, brown lumps around my feet.

The stream became a flood. It rose up around me as I dug quickly, trying to find its source so I could replace the defective plumbing. I was knee deep in shit.

I understand most people don’t recall their dreams very well. I remember them just about as well as my waking life. I remember the colors, realistic colors or the occasional filtered colors of particularly odd dreams. I remember sounds, textures, smells.

Such as the smell of being knee deep in shit.

I’ve a very active dream life. Nearly every night I take strange excursions through my subconscious, granting the metaphors of my mind temporary imitation life.

Dreams have a quality, a texture, that makes them feel different from reality. Well, most of the time anyway. These past couple of months have seemed like an awful dream. It has been the unreal quality of a mental disconnect, of realizing what seemed impossible is actually the truth. That sense of the unreal is wearing off.

We know what is life, because life seems real. It seems like... work.

I think we are going to stay together. If we can find a way to forgive each other, build each other up.

A dream usually does not feel like effort. This feels like effort. It is effort. I fake trust. I hope someday it will be more than that.

Today we had the dedication of our new church building. Finally we will move beyond the chapter of our lives which contained the charred remains of the old building, the deep excavation and framing and furnishing of the building, beyond the gushing glee of my church family in their happiness of a fresh new building, and onto the gentle work of using this new framework of a physical building to do His work.

There are two women in particular who have helped us during this awful, dreamlike chapter. They didn’t tell us how we should feel. They didn’t tell us to “get over it.” Instead, they listened. They heard.

I am grateful to these two sisters in Christ who knew how to help us in a small way.

So, I’m waking up to the uncomfortable situation of life today. I see I am knee deep in shit.

I’ll just have to grab the shovel and go to work on what's broken.