Witness to Creation
From the journal, April 29, 2004
What an interesting dream. I was in an odd place much like earth. There is an awful lot going on, most of it selfish, greedy, violent, etc. Wait a minute, let me start over
>At my mom's place. She struggles to make ends meet, I worry her job will run out soon. I leave her building, run into Allen Ponziani along the way. He is doing well for himself. We go downstairs to a doorway that I understand to be a portal between worlds. I go through, and immediately lose track of Allan.
In this world I am with Kitty and Nina. I am a guest in this apartment that is falling apart. I'm grateful to have a place to stay, but ungrateful because I don't like the place. I think I'm wearing a huge monk's habit here. For a bed, I sleep on an extremely worn straw mat. I look out the window at the street below and see a bunch of people, twenty or so, all dressed in fancy costumes reminiscent of medieval clothing. They play a game that reminds me of soccer. They all look rich and happy. I want to be with them, not in this threadbare apartment in dreary clothes.
Even as I think this, our surroundings disappear and I find myself alone in a featureless place except for a large Book sitting on a podium. At first I think the Book is blank, but when I drop it, I see there are words inside. When I pick it up, it levitates upwards, carrying me with it. When I shut the Book, we both are gently brought to the ground.
Some of the people I'd seen in the street (who had since become my friends) showed up then and I decided to show them the Book. "Why, it's blank." one man says, but then a very odd thing happens. He continues looking at the Book as if he understood there was something odd about it. Then, the pages started filling with words, page after page after page of information on absolutely everything. The words then overflowed the book and cascaded out of it like an unstoppable waterfall of information. It filled the room, the world, and the universe itself with all this information. But it wasn't just information, there was activity also.
The words weren't simply a dead record of facts, but they somehow were the things they described. The words made all the things they described at the same time as they recorded what they were, why they were there, how all these things behaved together. There was also information about the workings of the world and universe itself. Intuitively I understood that all the information was correct.
There were also records on every person who had ever lived, was living, or ever would live. I saw my own file and grabbed it to read later. Even the glimpse I had was enough to know that the file was total; nothing whatsoever missing from it. When I grabbed my file, I noticed another thing: Every person in this place was subject to the rules of He Who Wrote the Book. "The Book" might sound like a Bible, but a Bible is written for mankind. This book seemed to be for the Writer himself, his own record of things, some of which are in the Bible, but a great deal more than that as well.
Now that we had read it and somewhat understood what it was, we became bonded to the Writer, like servants. All of a sudden there were rules to live by and obligations to keep. We each had jobs designated by the Writer, as did all of His other subjects and there were many of these. The world didn't seem all that badly off for all these rules, because the Ruler, who I was very much afraid of, didn't seem so disorganized as to have made a mess of the rules. Actually, the primary basis for my fear was the total perfection of the Writer. Anyone who could make this Work, had power beyond my ability to understand.
I didn't like the idea of bowing and scraping to Him though, so I pretended he didn't exist (though I always knew in my heart that he did.) I always knew He was there, and the people around me definitely knew it, but I disobeyed the rules and generally ignored my obligations under them. This is another reason I was afraid of the Writer of the Book, though His power was the greater fear. I spent some time trying to enjoy myself ignoring the Rules while simultaneously going around with a knot in my stomach because I knew that the Writer was well aware of every thing I did. I was surprised He hadn't taken notice, or done anything about it yet, because I knew from what I saw of His Work in the Book, that He could very easily destroy me. I knew that He was benign, but He was also serious about His rules.
I ran into my friends at a sort of modern but medieval looking outdoor market, doing whatever it was they were supposed to do now that they were subjects of the Writer of the Book. I told them that they didn't have to be His mindless servants, that they were stupid to devote their lives to His service. I described to them how I was free to go around doing whatever I wanted, totally ignoring the Writer, having fun instead of slaving away for an invisible task master. I did not tell them how empty I felt, how lonely it was to "have fun," while knowing that I was violating my obligations, and the fear I felt because I knew I transgressed. Despite all this, I entreated my friends to drop what they were doing and go out in the world with me, free of their master's yoke.
As a body, they disagreed with me on many points. They made it clear that they were afraid of Him also, probably more than me. They protest that they do have to perform their obligations to Him, that their entire lives are ordered and dictated by Him, and that they don't mind. If anything, they seem to derive pleasure from the service they perform. That really surprised me. I hadn't expected them to not mind. I thought they did this work out of fear alone, but they actually said, and appeared to be, happy to do it. In fact, they appeared to be happier than before they opened the book, when they played in their expensive clothes and hadn't a care in the world.
They then went further and said to me that I had better be afraid of Him also, that I should listen for my instructions because He is whispering them to me. They also gave me the impression somehow that if I didn't obey, I'd meet the Writer someday and he wouldn't be happy with my "job performance," that I would have a review of sorts where this would be evaluated. The last thing they communicate to me is that I should not hesitate, but immediately "report for duty."
Notes
This dream may have some real world elements related to my recent move to Netherlands. I didn’t write down all the details in my journal (I have slightly updated it here), but I distinctly remembered the appearance of things in the first and last “earth” scenes. I was looking down into a very old looking street from a small window at the top of a building. The people below at first seemed to be dancing with a ball in their midst, a soccer ball. Their clothes seemed medieval, and so did the street they played in, yet they were modern at the same time. That is why I wrote that their clothes were “costumes”. Until we moved here on June 3rd, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might recognize these scenes in Europe. The World Cup football match has been in full swing since we arrived, and only finishes today. When we arrived, Holland was still in the match, and all our neighbors seemed to be wearing orange costumes (in support of the Dutch team) as they roamed the ancient streets of our town, dribbling footballs as they went.
When we moved to our “permanent” house, I recognized the window from my top floor little bedroom. It looks out on a very old medieval era street, with a little beer pub opposite it. I have had several occasions to look out and see people in the streets playing or singing or practicing their football passing techniques.
Inside the house, I do have a straw mat exactly where I saw it in the dream. The house is not in great shape, and everything in it (so far) is borrowed. I’m not too crazy about the plain food, the heat, or sleeping on the floor (!) as I’ve had to do a few times.
There are several outdoor markets here, all set in the middle of medieval squares.