A Modern Nightmare
Speaking of weird dreams here and there, how about an ominous Cinderella-esque story of a postmodern ball that I didn’t get to go to early this morning..?
A group of about 10-20 hip and cool young people (a sea of faces from bluer) had gathered in our church office/home (it was a revamped rambler just like one of the very first Vineyards I ever attended in Connecticut and the office was the kitchen area) to rendezvous with Brian McLaren to go out to celebrate and discuss postmodernism. I was there working in the office to unpack and reorganize it for postmodern use. While Brian had gone out to bring around the van for everyone (it was snowy and wintry - and his van looked remarkably just like mine!), someone asked me if I was going along. But I told them I hadn’t been invited - but secretly inside I really, really, really wanted to go too. Brian returned and the party moved out the door. As I watched through the window, I saw my mom (in her younger, hipper days) turn to Brian, pointing towards the house. I knew she was asking him if I could come along. With a business-like air of authority and a little bit of irritation in his face, I could tell he refused. Without any reaction from the others including my mom, the whole party, continuing its jovial mood, turned to the van with carefree abandon and departed. Stinging with rejection and sorrow, and fighting anxiety that endured the rest of the dream, I turned to the boxes of materials that needed to be sorted and stored. One box contained myriad back up disks that each held a letter of the alphabet in a different font. Another box had just as many of those USB sticks with assorted data on them. I moved over to the counter to find a place for these items. There was a chest of small wooden organizer drawers (the kind I’ve been looking at for my silverware in my kitchen). Someone had stuffed the pieces to different board games in them. The checker board was askew in one drawer with lots of empty space around it (never mind that in real life it would never fit) and the chess pieces haphazardly lay in the drawer below it. So I started to pull the stuff out and organize it when a massive spider floated from the cupboards above across the room to the round kitchen table behind me. The table was cluttered with more church supplies to be put away and a large silver mixing bowl filled with papers. The spider landed in the bowl as I stirred up my courage to kill this thing so I could get on with my work. When I turned to face it, terror overwhelmed me when I realized how big it was - as big as a RAT and shaped like a RAT even though it was a spider. A huge glob of webbing mucous dripped from its snout and with an appendage shaped like a human hand, it reached up to wipe it off. It started to defiantly address me, threatening to harm me if I tried to kill it. Then my clock radio went off.
Boy, was I glad to wake up! Ok, now, I’ve stopped reading Neil Anderson before bed so I wouldn’t have bad dreams, but Brian McLaren and A New Kind of Christian..? And yes, I know my personal anxieties are wide open for the world to see here as well. This is kind of freaky. What’s with my mom in here? And what is with the RAT??? Mark Miron, it’s time to start your career (cause I can’t afford the professional help I probably really need…) Anybody got a couch I can lay on?