The River Church Community

I recently started the spiritual practice of recording my dreams.  And I am of two minds about it.  One, waking up in the middle of the night to write down a dream sounds like the worst waste of sleep imaginable.  It takes forever and makes falling back to sleep a pain—especially if you get out of bed to write it!  Two, it has been the richest spiritual practice in my life over the past few months. 

So, I guess, it is worth it in my opinion.  I have read many books and done some investigation and the fruit has been ten-fold my time and effort (and sleep loss!)  In my dreams my deep fears are revealed.  In my dreams, God leads me.  It is crazy to think that so much good can come out of seemingly random dreams in which scenes change without transition, men can become pregnant and we can fly.  But it is true.  And if you look into it, dreams clearly are a way that spiritual people are shaped in the scriptures and the early church.  Not a few sleepers became saints because of a dream. 

One of my favorite stories is of Saint Jerome—the writer of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate.  He is a rich man with an enormous library.  And one night he has a dream.  In the dream, he is in his library.  He is admiring his books, reading them and relishing in the information when God speaks to him.  “Do you love me more than these books, Jerome?”  Upon waking, he donates all his books to the poor (except for a few that he takes with him to a cave and translates the bible).  Jerome, the aristocrat, becomes Jerome, the Saint.  How?  Because of a dream.