This will serve as an explanation
It has come to my attention, that this collection of dreams needs more of an introduction than first thought.
I realize now that without the context of myself, these dreams seem quite ordinary for many. Or, merely bizzare. I think what makes them stand out to Art & I would take some explaining of myself before anyone else could understand why they might be worth anything at all.
1) Although I was raised a Christian - Seventh-Day Adventist, at that - I would say I have fairly untraditional ideas about religion and God. This plays into the following dreams because they are oddly littered with religious symbols that I myself either do not think about much or don't hold much weight in. I am not your read-the-bible-once-a-day kind of person. I don't think about heaven or the end of the world or the rulers of high churches much at all. I believe the Bible is a very useful history of the Jewish/Christian religion, but not that it is God's final word to humanity. I believe, rather, that God speaks currently to everyone. I don't even know if I believe a "Hell" exists. Which follows that Satan is more of a symbol of evil than an actual person causing all these issues in our world.
2) And yet, I'm pretty sure I have met demons in my life. One was late at night. It was watching me from the corner of the dark living room I was supposed to be sleeping in. I couldn't see it, but I felt a strange hollowness before I saw it move out from the shadows before I left the room. The others were less physical, but not in the least bit less vocal. I'm certain they told me for years that I was going to kill myself. This, like the dreams, I can't explain other than to say I have no idea how anything outside of our world exists or what form(s) it can take.
3) Some of the following dreams may seem to be results of violence found in TV, movies, or video games. However, I don't watch TV (We don't own one), I won't even watch a violent preview for a movie, and the most I have played video games is Myst (which is puzzle solving/math games and entirely non-violent).
And now for the introduction Art wrote:
First I want to post some of Rali and I's notes on the short Easter drama we put on for our church in Cali. The theme our pastor requested was "How the resurrection of Jesus Chirst is a dangerous idea" based on the Pharisees' referal to it being a deception even more dangerous than the first. In the working out of these ideas we came to an image for this time.
dangerous grace
Christ's death + resurrection is dangerous
-morality being imposed is scary
first "deception" is that just doing "good" isn't enough. You can't write enough rules to fix our situation.
-first dangerous idea
--you must simply "change now" and live the law
Pharisees wanted to keep God in a box; understood and controlled so that they could define success and "succeed"
the lie of our current culture is that morality is made up by an individual. "I am fine as long as I feel fine. No one can say otherwise, that would be selfish of them."
-So therefore the first dangerous truth would be that you are not fine, you need to have the "law" in you heart and live by it.
second "deception": Jesus's death destroys the credibility of agreeing with him. Makes him ridiculous.
Him coming back takes it to different level.
1st "deception": that he can take control from them
2nd "deception": they never had conrol as he was above it
So this got us talking about how right now if Jesus were to come back there would be a lot of people to which he would be saying "Yeah, but I never knew you." because most people are just fine and ok and dandy and all. People look back to the situation in Israel that we were thinking about and say, "Ah, see? I got it, there's no issue because I feel ok in my heart." and yet forget about the action part of life.
Then we got onto talking about things we were trying to do, like bike everywhere and support eating more natural foods and such, when we came to an image.
Right now it's like we are all in a speeding car and there is a wall up ahead coming up very fast. And people have noticed the wall and are freaking out and we are all kind of hitting the brakes or at least trying to. But it's one of those situations where you hit the brakes but you know it's going to hit anyway; you're just desperate for some sort of response.
Recently, on April 5th, an older woman at our church also made a rather intriguing announcement. She told us that in the middle of the night she awoke and heard a voice clearly say to her:
"Groom all of them."
The next day she looked up the word "groom" and found that one of its main definitions is worded "to prepare". She told us about this because she felt it was a message for everybody.
And so right now, there's that screeching of the brakes that you hear right before the smash of metal.
Rali and I biked home together listening to it.
I think this woman heard it pretty clearly, too.
This is eerie.
And now, Rali won't stop dreaming about the end of the world.
I realize now that without the context of myself, these dreams seem quite ordinary for many. Or, merely bizzare. I think what makes them stand out to Art & I would take some explaining of myself before anyone else could understand why they might be worth anything at all.
1) Although I was raised a Christian - Seventh-Day Adventist, at that - I would say I have fairly untraditional ideas about religion and God. This plays into the following dreams because they are oddly littered with religious symbols that I myself either do not think about much or don't hold much weight in. I am not your read-the-bible-once-a-day kind of person. I don't think about heaven or the end of the world or the rulers of high churches much at all. I believe the Bible is a very useful history of the Jewish/Christian religion, but not that it is God's final word to humanity. I believe, rather, that God speaks currently to everyone. I don't even know if I believe a "Hell" exists. Which follows that Satan is more of a symbol of evil than an actual person causing all these issues in our world.
2) And yet, I'm pretty sure I have met demons in my life. One was late at night. It was watching me from the corner of the dark living room I was supposed to be sleeping in. I couldn't see it, but I felt a strange hollowness before I saw it move out from the shadows before I left the room. The others were less physical, but not in the least bit less vocal. I'm certain they told me for years that I was going to kill myself. This, like the dreams, I can't explain other than to say I have no idea how anything outside of our world exists or what form(s) it can take.
3) Some of the following dreams may seem to be results of violence found in TV, movies, or video games. However, I don't watch TV (We don't own one), I won't even watch a violent preview for a movie, and the most I have played video games is Myst (which is puzzle solving/math games and entirely non-violent).
And now for the introduction Art wrote:
First I want to post some of Rali and I's notes on the short Easter drama we put on for our church in Cali. The theme our pastor requested was "How the resurrection of Jesus Chirst is a dangerous idea" based on the Pharisees' referal to it being a deception even more dangerous than the first. In the working out of these ideas we came to an image for this time.
dangerous grace
Christ's death + resurrection is dangerous
-morality being imposed is scary
first "deception" is that just doing "good" isn't enough. You can't write enough rules to fix our situation.
-first dangerous idea
--you must simply "change now" and live the law
Pharisees wanted to keep God in a box; understood and controlled so that they could define success and "succeed"
the lie of our current culture is that morality is made up by an individual. "I am fine as long as I feel fine. No one can say otherwise, that would be selfish of them."
-So therefore the first dangerous truth would be that you are not fine, you need to have the "law" in you heart and live by it.
second "deception": Jesus's death destroys the credibility of agreeing with him. Makes him ridiculous.
Him coming back takes it to different level.
1st "deception": that he can take control from them
2nd "deception": they never had conrol as he was above it
So this got us talking about how right now if Jesus were to come back there would be a lot of people to which he would be saying "Yeah, but I never knew you." because most people are just fine and ok and dandy and all. People look back to the situation in Israel that we were thinking about and say, "Ah, see? I got it, there's no issue because I feel ok in my heart." and yet forget about the action part of life.
Then we got onto talking about things we were trying to do, like bike everywhere and support eating more natural foods and such, when we came to an image.
Right now it's like we are all in a speeding car and there is a wall up ahead coming up very fast. And people have noticed the wall and are freaking out and we are all kind of hitting the brakes or at least trying to. But it's one of those situations where you hit the brakes but you know it's going to hit anyway; you're just desperate for some sort of response.
Recently, on April 5th, an older woman at our church also made a rather intriguing announcement. She told us that in the middle of the night she awoke and heard a voice clearly say to her:
"Groom all of them."
The next day she looked up the word "groom" and found that one of its main definitions is worded "to prepare". She told us about this because she felt it was a message for everybody.
And so right now, there's that screeching of the brakes that you hear right before the smash of metal.
Rali and I biked home together listening to it.
I think this woman heard it pretty clearly, too.
This is eerie.
And now, Rali won't stop dreaming about the end of the world.