Dreams on the top the mountain
I dream a lot. More often I can accurately depend on dreams to help me understand my experiences, prepare for the future, or to help me find peace with my challenges.
A few nights ago I was reading my Facebook feed. The news feed has been all a twitter with gay activist celebrating the recent turn of events which has made Utah’s marriage law of one man and one woman “unconstitutional.” Because of personal experience, and my own personal grief I find this topic very emotional. I choose not to publicly proclaim my opinion because I do not want a target on my face for criticism or anti-christian sentiment. This is not an indication of my feelings about this subject, on the contrary.
One of my facebook friends, who is a gay rights supporter, posed the question, to get feedback pros and cons, around the subject for an article she is writing for a school newspaper. My mind began swirling, reeling with sadness, grief and fear. It has taken me years to process, understand and deal with the issues I have surrounding my own gay father. I have experienced gay hatred, I have experienced compassion, and empathy. I have experienced loss of the tangable and the never existant dreams. I have seen the hope of Christ’s love diminish into fear and darkness… bitterness and sadness. I witnessed the destruction of my own father’s life because he chose to move from the protection promised by living obediently to the laws of God. He died alone, penniless….. urinary tract infection, pneumonia, staff infection, fungal infection, meningitis. All of these illnesses because of his choice to “love freely” who he would love.
My gut reaction is to preach of these sufferings to the community. To explain that my family has experienced the road of homosexuality and come out alive, despite the destruction and sadness it caused us. And yet I fear for retribution of those who would not listen to the preaching of repentance. I want to save them from suffering as I have. I want to keep in tact the families of those mothers and fathers. I want to preserve the feeling of safety and love provided by loving fathers to their children.
I sat in bed, my heart racing, air constricting my breath, heaviness in my chest and my spirit. Gripped with fear and sadness, responsibility and weight. I prayed fervently to my Father, to help me understand and have to faith, to have courage. To feel peace, despite the feeling of growing darkness around me.
As a civil right, marriage equality seems fine. But as an issue of moral tapestry, it will undo our great nation. For this I fear.
As I lay in bed, tormented by this emotional diress, a memory came to mind. It was a great dream from a few years ago. I was in an airport with my two oldest children. I was tricked to go down to hell. Hell was the basement of the airport. Blue carpet, white walls. Around the perimeter of the ceiling was a bank-teller like track. Covered with a blank spongy tentacle, this track carried bright shiny lights that zipped around the room. Swoosh— swoosh! zip, flash. Inside of me was a bright light, almost like a marble, glowing brightly. This light represented my agency, my ability to choose, and the circumstances to have the freedom to choose. Some well intentioned family members got ahold of my light, and attempted to ever more banish me to the black entanglign track. My light was gone, slurped out of my hands. The track grew tentacles and ensnared my light, eagerly awaiting a new soul to keep.
I was furious. With all the energy of my body, I fought for the right to have my freedom, my agency, my light. If it was taken, never would it return. Anger flared my passion for air. I grabbed my light, leaving my children to fend for themselves I ascended from the hell of down stairs to the airport above. I could go any where I chose. I could be anything I wanted. Freedom was obtain, and bondage was averted.
This dream was a gift to teach me about the power of purpose of agency. While many weeks passed, I shared this experience only a hand full of times. I carried with me a great guilt that I left my children, in hell, no less for my own gain, my own freedom. I was sad about this, and really questioned my worth and choices as a mother. And then I realized with great relief that Heavenly Father did the same thing. He fathered a Savior, even Jesus Christ, to come to this earth, in some ways for him a living hell, as he was beat, betrayed, mocked and ridiculed. Heavenly Father left him on his own, even in the suffering on the cross of Gethsemane, so that we could have our agency.
While there is great tumultuous changes in our community, of which we will not fully understand the ramifications for decades to come, the agency that I found so diligently for, is the same gift afforded to my brothers and sisters in the community. They also have the right to choose. I do not need to carry the burden of their lives, sin or choices, just like I know they do not carry mine.
I went to sleep.
That night I had another dream. Up on a hill, maybe of a beautiful country like Switzerland, I was exploring. There was a large home built right on top of the peak. I do not remember much, except that the bricks were brown, the walls were white. I turned the corner in the house and I saw Grandma Joy. She was radiant. Her hair was white, and curled like she always wore it, and she smiled passionately and radiantly at me. I felt so relieved to see her. Grandpa was there too. He was busy building her a mansion.
As I awoke in the morning, I felt a sublime sense of peace, that in my greatest need and fervent prayer Heavenly Father would send messangers of love to my aid. In my dreams, my grandparents come. In their happiness, I know that Grandpa is busy building grandma a mansion, in the life to come. I know that they continue to live, that families are forever, and that I am theirs.
I cannot control others, I cannot judge others. What I can do is shine, and bear witness to the truths I know as the time arises. I can teach my children that they are loved, and that they have a purpose on this earth. I can release my fear unto Christ, allowing him to take my burden, and sadness, to lift my fear and accept his love. I am not sinning by loving others. And I do not need to carry the weight of other’s sins on the back of my own experience.
