A prophetic dream

Boy, I miss coming here. I think about it during the day, and then I'm tired in the evening. This Disciple Bible study I am taking has a lot of durn reading, which I knew it would. Out of the Bible, no less.

Good thing I wrote down this dream or it would be long gone, not that I'm in the mood NOW to write about it. But I did promise, and a promise is a promise, right? Writers can't always just dash off the things they feel like writing about at any particular moment. There is, heavy sigh, discipline involved in actually being a decent writer. No fun, once again! (Actually, it's still a lot of fun.)

Cyndi, don't read this while on your lovely Disney World vacation! I wish I were there!!

Oh yes, the dream. People were sitting around tables at a festivity or party, in a conference room sort of place probably in a hotel, since these were visitors. These people had just finished committing atrocities out in the wilds of Africa someplace. They were all white and spoke with British accents (ha, ha). They had gone through the native villages and systematically slaughtered people out there, and they were not even aware of the enormous suffering and waste of human life they had caused. Here they were, belly up to the bar, ready to have a great big party, so proud of themselves for "cleaning out the garbage" or something of that sort.

I was there as the big party pooper, and I went up to one table and started explaining to these people what they had done. You have killed all these people. They are gone forever. Their villages are marred by your violence. Their children are orphans and will forever have nightmares of seeing their parents die. I saw these smiling, laughing faces of these totally unaware people going serious as I spoke. I was talking to two ladies about it, who at first were laughing and giggling, but then had a slight dawning of comprehension that something was wrong. Very wrong.

This place where the killing happened was a tropical jungle with lots of wild animals, wild trees, a river, those jungly vines that Mowgli used to swing through (now who wrote that story?). That story was set somewhere in Asia (had to Google to check for sure, but the presence of Shere Khan the tiger really nails that location as not Africa) -- but this dream was in Africa, so just stay with me on that. It was totally the "Heart of Darkness" come alive. The horror! The horror!

So this dream has many obvious parallels to today's world that do not need to be belabored, much. The really sad thing is that atrocities are happening, somewhere in the world, right now. And now. And now. ... The fashionable thing in the Congo and elsewhere these days is to rape all the women and girls. And we Americans are like those party-goers, if not directly responsible, for sure directly irresponsible and unaware.

So just be a little bit more aware in your daily life of how fortunate, very fortunate, are those of us who will never live in a war zone, never know daily hunger, never be without a home, never see a child raped or dead of a preventable disease or malnutrition. This is heavy handed, but it needs to be. Because if every one on earth were truly tuned in to all this suffering, how could it possibly continue and escalate? I don't think it could.

The dream was somewhat unlike reality because it is more common for people from the same geographic region, but with political or ethnic or religious differences, to slaughter one another. Inotherwords, neighbors murdering neighbors is more common than people coming from far away, which is more typical of a declared war between/among countries -- when it's nothing personal. Jesus really meant it when he said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." How much better off the world would be if everyone did, or even tried to.

So, 29+12 school supply kits on their way to Iraq! I do feel good about that. This was an effort made possible by the generous donations of people at my church and by the Wilson County News.

A postscript on a lighter note (desperately needed): When I am away from home, I can never locate my own blog. I just can't remember exactly what the URL is, and of course it does not pop up under any searches I've been able to conjure. It's almost like it is not really there at all, except on my home computer. Hmmm. I need to write down the URL in my portable events schedule. So this leads to the enormous philosophical quandary: if I can't even find myself, how will anybody else? Lost: blog. Posted by a supremely generic name on a huge number of topics. If you find it, please e-mail or FB or text or something!