I had a very strange dream early this morning. The good news is that I was uncomfortable with it and knew that reflecting upon it would bring about some revelations that I was not sure that I liked. I could share the dream but then I decided that the telling of it might create other problems. That is for another venue.
Which is to say that I think that we choose to tell our stories, the stories that we think that people want to hear. Or the stories that we want to share. Not the ones about our darkest self. That part of us that we do not like to “bring to light” or that our parents or grandparents/whoever (if fortunate) did not wish to share or be revealed. So that we could grow up in a civilized manner and function in our own particular culture. If we pay attention the stories almost always put us in a ” superior position” and the other person/people (whoever) take an “inferior position” as adversaries. Us versus Them. Whoever is “Out to get us” as the phrase suggests. As if we are constantly being chased and can never escape.
The reality is that the “dark stories” or those things that we have been taught to not acknowledge in our selves, that we have been running away from all of these years have a nasty habit of appearing just when we thought that we had hidden them all away. This is usually an unconsious thing that we don’t realize until “after the fact” and that is if we are lucky! Another fact is that the way that we “see” these “dark stories or dark selves” is in our dreams but do not consciously realize it as being part of us…the dark side-waiting-to-be-united with the bright/best/light side.
We unfortunately “act out” our frustration of this dark side with our nearest and dearest personally or professionally. (You can imagine where can lead.) This “story” of the things we hate the most, is usually recognized in other people with whom we have the greatest struggles, because they are the “projector screen” on which we “see” the things that cannot claim (or honestly recognize) to be our own traits, faults, fears, misgivings, real abilities/”gifts”, etc. This happens within families, small groups/tribes, churches, communities, countries, and whole cultures. And this happens within our very own innermost self. At “war” with what our heart knows and needs and where the soul is pulled. Not to mention the “spirit” the lightest part of the self…wants for our whole being. To be free and to follow what brings us life.
I have discovered (through prayer/dreamwork and the Grace of God) that The Holy Spirit is the Source of my life and brings energy to my heart. I am beyond grateful to Mattherw Linn, Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn for Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, John Sanford: Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language , Morton Kelsey and all his books, and Jurgen Moltmann for
The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and The Theology of Life all which picked me up from a very dark place and planted seeds that grew once again (only better this time around) into “new life.” Thus helping me to transition back “my story” once again. Only this time I have to acknowledge as much of it as I can bring into focus, day by day. Each day it is a little different, but more continues to be added to it. The bad with the good. Together as a whole. That is the point. It is my firm belief that God, that Jesus Christ, and the The Holy Spirit only want the most that we are able to share each day. The Story should choose us. Not the other way around.
Just Janine
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