C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for January 14, 2007 I arrived at the church, and it could have been any Sunday morning. People were milling around in the narthex, some were beginning to take their seats, and I was feeling anxious because it was already time to start the service, but I couldn’t get through the crowds. I was trying to elbow my way through but was having trouble doing it, and no one was paying attention to me. I was getting very anxious because it was now past 9:30. Then, my heart skipped a beat when I looked down, and realized I was standing in my pajamas. No one seemed too worried about that either. Eventually, I got to the front of the church ready to begin the service. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come out. It was as if my whole body had gone limp, and there was no voice there. The experience I just described to you is a dream that I have had many times on a Saturday night. It is a dream that many speakers have had in some variation throughout their careers, bringing together all of the nervous energy one has before standing in front of a crowd. Dreams as Connections I want to speak today about dreams. I want to use dreams as a way to link the series we have just finished on the book of Revelation, and the series we are about to begin on science and religion, as we spend three Sunday mornings and have our three-week class on Wednesday nights leading up to what we will call Evolution Sunday on February 4. I also want to link together the book of Revelation with our science and religion series using some ideas that I gleaned from Carolyn Myss’ book Sacred Contracts. Does that sound ambitious enough for the next 20 minutes? I’ve been on holiday for two weeks, so I’ve had two weeks to prepare for this. So you are about to get two weeks downloaded into 20 minutes. If that seems like too much for you, why don’t you just sleep? Sleep, sleep, perchance, even to dream? Enjoy, because now we know that even when we are asleep and dreaming, we are still learning. What are dreams? Scientifically, dreams are acetylcholine, a dream cocktail, consisting of 7 parts carbon, 17 parts hydrogen, 1 part nitrogen, and 3 parts oxygen. The acetylcholine neurons send rapid bursts of electrical signals to the cortex, the seat of higher thought and sight. The cortex takes this information and weaves it into random stories, interpreting the signals by referring to pre-existing memories. So I can tell you what is taking place in our brains while we are dreaming, but I can’t tell you why we dream. Science can’t yet tell us what the purpose of dreams are. What’s more, science cannot tell us why there seem to be universal patterns in dreams, why people in different cultures experience the same symbols, like teeth falling out. It seems to me that dreams are a wonderful example of the intersection of science and spirituality, meaning and mystery, objective and subjective, literal and symbolic. Dreams as Tricksters Consider this dream and its aftermath. A woman dreamt about a coyote that came out of a cave and licked her hand. She woke up and rode to work, on the bus. While on the bus, she read a magazine, and came across an advertisement for a perfume that is called “Coyote.” The picture on the ad was of a model dressed in native garb petting a coyote. As she viewed this she thought, “This is a coincidence.” But she didn’t think much more of it. When she arrived at work, there was a message waiting for her. The person who had left the message was someone she had never met before, and the person’s name was William Coyote. The plot thickened. She then went to lunch with a friend, and told the friend about these coincidences, and the friend said, “You won’t believe this!”, pulled a book out of her bag and said, “This is what I am reading at the moment.” It was a book called Coyote Justice. The woman was staggered by all of these coincidences surrounding her dream, so she decided to do some research on the coyote. She discovered that the coyote is a symbol in many culture’s myths. The coyote is often seen as a trickster, one who steals fire from the gods to give to humans. The coyote is the mischievous one, who lightens a heavy situation and creates a shift in perspective. The coyote or trickster, in cultural mythology, is a symbol for not being too dogmatic or literal, to step back from a situation and look at it symbolically. I’m thinking that dreams are like our “tricksters.” They are experiences that cause us to step back and see life from a different perspective. Whatever the symbols may or may not mean, the dreams function like the coyote. Dreams are like the parables of Jesus. There is no one absolute meaning that comes out of a dream or a parable; rather, they are designed to intentionally hide the meaning. They are designed specifically to make it hard to recognize what the meaning is. We spend time trying to become aware of what is occurring for us in the dream or parable, and inevitably make new connections. Dreams serve a very important function. They blur the line between the literal and the symbolic. This is the idea that I want to tease out for you this morning, especially in relation to Carolyn Myss’ book, Sacred Contracts. I spent two weeks with this book. When I first saw it, I thought it was a 2-day book. But I became very engaged with it for a full two weeks. I poured myself into it and found it really interesting. I was quite skeptical. My rational mind was balking at many of the ideas in it, but at the same time I was compelled by it. Through this, Carolyn introduced me to the great notion of symbolic perspective. When we think about our dreams, we are too quick to move to the literal. We are too quick to say, “This dream means this.” We don’t know that for sure. Rather, it is better for us to stand back and see it as an experience that we need to befriend. Just be with the experience. Be aware of what it is like to be in the experience before feeling a need to draw anything from it, if indeed there needs to be any meaning drawn from it. Seeing Life Symbolically I believe that Carolyn Myss has given us one of the pieces of the puzzle that we can use as progressive religious people, and move from our tradition to our present experience. She shows us a way to take our past, and use it symbolically in our present. That symbolic perspective can then drive us into the future. I want to talk more about this “blurring the lines” because I believe it was pointed out in the reading from the gospel this morning. Some people came to Jesus, and they were the religious “tricksters” of the first century. They asked Jesus, “Which of the commandments is the greatest?” Jesus clearly saw this as a trick question. It was a trick question as it was asking for an answer that was literal or dogmatic. No matter how Jesus answered the question, he knew that he would end up in a debate. It’s like your children coming to you and asking which of your kids is the best. As a parent, how could you answer that question without ending up in huge arguments? What Jesus did in this situation was intriguing. He became the trickster. Rather than answering the question literally, he stepped back and said, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart.” The heart is a universal archetype, or symbol, for depth and passion. It doesn’t literally mean that, the heart is what it is. We all understand, however, when someone says to love with all of your heart. It means to love with depth and with passion. So Jesus gave this brilliant answer, which would have caused them to stop and rethink life, and to see the ancient law with new eyes, from a symbolic perspective. There are many other universal symbols like the heart. We have the cross, out of our own tradition. We have the notion of god and goddess. We have the clown and the phoenix. We have so many universal symbols, and we simply know what they mean. They do not have a literal or dogmatic meaning like the religious person wanted, rather, they have symbolic meaning. We tend to get caught up in the need to have literal answers. Science itself can get caught up in the need for literal answers. And yet, so often as progressive religious people, we seek to dwell in that space where they intersect, so often the place of mystery, the place of symbolic perspective. Dream-time I’ve always been fascinated by indigenous cultures. In Australia I got to learn a little about the aboriginal culture, which is one of the longest surviving cultures in the world (up to 150,000 years old). Aborigines have a very interesting notion of dreams. They believe that, as people dream, their ancestors are visiting them. Every place, event and situation has already been lived by their ancestors. There is little sense of linear time. As they dream, they are bringing to mind that which has happened in the past, and they are imagining that which will happen in the future. Those that have studied the aboriginal culture describe this as the “everywhen.” The past, present and future all coming together, with little sense of linear time. The interesting thing about aboriginal culture is that they have turned around what we have taken for granted in our western world-view. We take for granted that what happens when we are awake is the literal, or objective. What happens when we are asleep is the symbolic, or subjective. The aboriginals have turned it around to say that what happens when we are asleep is the literal. That is the objective. What happens when we are awake is the symbolic, or subjective. It is as if what they are saying is that what happens when we are asleep is more real than what happens when we are awake. This is a very interesting way for us as westerners to have the trickster come to us and say, “Take a different perspective.” Do you remember that wonderful old Chinese story about the philosopher that dreamed he was a butterfly? When he woke up he realized that he was a Chinese philosopher once again. But after a few moments he was cast into a serious doubt, an existential crisis. Was he now a butterfly, dreaming that he was a man? Or was he, before, a man dreaming he was a butterfly? The value in our dreams, and the trickster, or coyote in our life is to cause us to stand back and ask ourselves what is real. The trickster tells us that it is all real. The trickster says it is also all metaphor. The trickster says that there is always more. What are we doing when we are awake, other than using our imagination to interpret each event that arises? We are interpreting everything that is happening, all the time. Why do we think that is so much more real than what is occurring when we are dreaming? It may or may not be, but the dreams cause us to step back and ask the questions from a different perspective. Shadowing Each Others Dreams
I’ve been wondering why I’ve been having so many dreams about this community. As I was reading the book Sacred Contracts, it became clear to me. We have a sacred contract. Stop and think about it for a moment. This community used to be part of one of the most conservative denominations in the country. We are now one of the most progressive communities in the world. Who would have guessed it? This community has taken an Aussie priest, and plucked him out of New Zealand to come and lead this progressive community. A team has been gathered around, consisting of a local boy from Zeeland, a graduate from Hope College, a former musician from New York City, an administrator from Detroit, a soon to graduate interfaith minister, and a community that has come together from both local areas and further afield. It’s no accident that you and I have ended up together. It is no accident either literally or symbolically, because we have a sacred contract to be together. We have a sacred contract to forge a new way of being Christian in the modern world. A way that draws together the best of science and religion, and is happy to dwell in that intersecting point where we see life symbolically. We have a sacred contract to live, not literally, not dogmatically, not exclusively, but inclusively, drawing together al traditions and all possibilities, and stepping back to take a symbolic perspective. I want to encourage you once again to come to the party next Saturday night, January 20. I believe it is a wonderful celebration of the synchronicity that is c3. You do not want to miss this event, as it draws together all of those wonderful coincidences that make us up. Imagine that we have people in this community that can offer us intuitive readings, and bring their artistic talents, and bring astute scientific knowledge. Drawing all of that together next Saturday night is a celebration of the synchronicity, the wonder that is c3. If you have not gotten a ticket yet, pick one up today. You do not want to miss this celebration of our sacred contract. So, what do you do with your dreams? What do we do as a community as we shadow each other’s dreams? Bob Dylan wrote a song about World War III, and in that song he said “I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.” I want to make that same offer to you this morning. I will let you continue being in my dreams if I can be in yours. And we will shadow each other’s dreams. It’s not surprising because we have a sacred contract. We have an understanding. We have been brought together, and we must make meaning out of this synchronicity. However you find the balance between the literal and symbolic in your life, between the objective and subjective, live with awareness, passion, and depth with all of your heart, mind and soul. I don’t need to tell you what those things mean, because you already know. That’s the beauty of the archetype. It’s all real- awake, asleep, rapid eye movement dreaming, it is all real. It is all metaphor. Awake, asleep, putting interpretations on events, having dreams- it’s all metaphor. And the most beautiful thing of all- there’s always more. It’s all real, it’s all metaphor, and there’s always more. close window | ^ top | home |