Day 265: Pandemic Escape

 DAY 265

                              Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic                     

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty-eight    Friday 4 December 2020

Pandemic Escape?

Maybe Not in Your Dreams

“Studies are shedding light on the preoccupation of sleepers since the outbreak started…’ At least qualitatively you see some shifts in content of dreams from the beginning of the pandemic into the later months…. Dr. Dierdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, writes ‘the sleeping brain has incorporated the threat of Covid-19. The findings reinforce current thinking about the way that waking anxiety plays out during REM sleep: in images or metaphors representing the most urgent worries, whether these involve catching the coronavirus or violating mask-wearing protocols.’” - From a current newspaper article by the same title.

We were spending our annual week at a rented cottage at Laguna Beach, California. My twin brother and our little sister and I were playing in the many tidepools in the rocky area next to the beach, and our dad was fishing near two men also casting into the sea from the edge of the rocky area. Suddenly a large wave crashed over the rocks and swept the two men into the tumultuous sea. We watched as our dad was able to rescue one of the men and stood in numb silence as we watched the other man drown. For years afterward I was tormented by a nightmare of a wall of water coming toward me, awakening just before it got to me. This nightmare continued into college – the event happened when I was 10 years old - the power of context to influence dreams.

Scripture talks about dreams, from Jacob’s ladder to Joseph’s dreams while in Pharaoh’s prison to the angelic visit to Joseph regarding the birth of Jesus to the warning of the wise men to avoid the murderous Herod. These kinds of dreams have their genesis outside of us in the mind of God and differ from the dreams that enter us through earthly circumstances and experiences. In the list of effects of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit is included the promise that “your old men will dream dreams.” These can be life-encompassing dreams of things that can touch the lives of others for good and for God. It reminds us that God can sovereignly use dreams in our lives, nightmares-no, peace-marked dreams-yes.      

Reflective question: Are you troubled by bad dreams during this pandemic? Pray the Scripture below each night as you get into bed. Are you open to God placing a good ‘dream’ in your life?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 4:8 – In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Reflective hymn:  

“I Have a Dream’ – Pamela Pettitt (1954-2005) from Martin Luther King

“I have a dream” a man once said, “where all is perfect peace;

Where men and women, black and white,

Stand hand in hand and all unite in freedom and in love.”