A few weeks ago I dreamt about a country church.
At first I was inside the church, waiting for a friend in a sort of reception area and then I walked out into the parking lot. The landscape was open and flat, mostly fields with a bit of forest to my right. In the distance there was a pay phone. The phone rang, than stopped. A pickup truck emerged from the wooded area and a man hopped out to get his mail. It was peaceful and quiet.
Wandering back into the small wooden church, I saw that a small group of people were decorating the reception area as if for a holiday. There was a sort of stage and some kind of tapestry but I don't remember anything else about the decorations. The group included the pastor of the church and a few women, one of whom was a new convert with a background in the New Age.
Somehow I understood that the Church was Methodist and I asked the new convert what kind of Methodist. She told me it was Free Methodist and I told her about my grandmother and her love for the Free Methodist Church.
When the group was done working, the waiting area was spotless. There was a single hard backed chair facing the stage and wide old wood floors. Aside from the stage the room was sparsely furnished and plain. I could tell it was 1800s construction.
On the other side of the reception area was a big room where a dinner was being served. There were a long serving tables against the walls and trestle tables where people sat eating. Women were dishing up food to the crowd. People were talking and laughing. Everything was old-fashioned and inviting. I joined the group. And that is where the dream, or my memory of the dream, ended.
I thought about the Free Methodist Church later that day. I had never gone there with my grandmother that I remember and her funeral, which I attended at the age of 12, is a blur. Once in High School, I attend Free Methodist services with a friend. I had a good experience there but did not go back.
I did vaguely remember someone in my family saying that "everyone" on my grandfather's side of the family were Free Methodist ministers so last night I decided to do a little research. As it turns out, "everyone" means five out of seven sons, as pictured above. My great-grandfather, Jacob Jay Zahniser, is the tall guy 5th from the left. In the second photo (below) he is the tall guy again, holding his Bible high and tight.
While I have pursued a variety of religions and beliefs over the course of my life, Christianity has surfaced repeatedly over wide cycles of time. Growing up in completely secular family, I loved the Bible my grandmother gave me as a little girl (more on that here) and turned to it again and again over the course of my life. No one else in my family had that interest, that I knew of, except for my grandmother.
How surprising to think that Christianity is a family tradition I wasn't even aware of!
Oh, shame is a prison as cruel as a grave. Shame is a robber and he's come to take my name. Oh, love is my redeemer, lifting me up from the ground. Love is the power when my freedom song is found... - Molly Skaggs "Ain't No Grave"
I'm also partial to this part:
Oh, fear is a liar with a smooth and velvet tongue. Fear is a tyrant, he's always telling me to run. Oh, love is a resurrection and love is a trumpet sound. Love is my weapon, I'm gonna take my giants down. - Molly Skaggs "Ain't No Grave"
But I love the original Claude Ely lyrics too because they are the heart and soul of the song. So I've included them below:
Ain't No Grave
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
When I hear that trumpet sound
I'm gonna rise right out of the ground
Ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, I look way down the river
What do you think I see?
I see a band of angels
And they're coming after me
Ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, look down yonder, Gabriel
Put your feet on the land and sea
But Gabriel, don't you blow your trumpet
Till you hear from me
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
Ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, meet me, Jesus, meet me
Meet me in the middle of the air
And if these wings don't fail me
I will meet you anywhere
Ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, meet me, mother and father
Meet me down the river road
And mama, you know that I'll be there
When I check in my load
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain't no grave
Can hold my body down.
- Claude Ely
One of the first unusually vivid dreams I can recall was a dream I had in high school.
In this odd, but memorable dream, a single bright section of an orange transformed into a tiny infant right before my eyes. At the mall a few days later, I saw an album in a record store window. On its cover was a dreamy sort of image of a baby. The name of the album was Tangerine Dream.
I made the connection and bought it on the spot.
Later, listening to my new album through my headphones, I had a vision. In it, a group of men in dark robes were trudging up a hill. Behind them, a grove of trees had been cut down, and on each stump a man had been beheaded.
I had an interest in King Arthur from an early which may be why I recognized the men as Druids. Given that interest, I'm sure a lot of people would just chalk a vision like that up to imagination, but because I have aphantasia visions are few and far between for me (and those I do have are not deliberately self-generated). So it was unusual for me to see any kind imagery in any state.
What really got my attention however was the emotion I felt.
The scene was grisly, but I wasn't the least bit horrified. Instead, as the hauntingly beautiful music built to its crescendo, I felt a bittersweet sense of loss. I understood those retreating figures. I knew their way of life was ending and that loss moved me.
It wasn't until many years later, that my interest in Celtic spirituality would move me to become a member of the OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids). To me (as to many others in the order), druidry isn't a religion. It's more of a philosophy..
It is perfectly acceptable to be a Christian with an interest in druidry, which is not (as the OBOD) presents is not by definition an occult order but more focused on the study of ancient Celtic spirituality and mythology.
I have always love mythology and I like the way that this type of spirituality (like most indigenous traditions) intersects with nature.
Did my dream and the resulting vision predict this interest? Or is there something genetic that travels downstream through time that speaks to us? Or is it only coincidence?
That is the mystery.
____________
You can visit the OBOD website at Druidry.org
). The journal itself was gorgeous but, for me, it was the short verses on the top or bottom of every page were the real draw.I bought one for myself and one for a friend.
So I wrote my last sentence on the last line of the last page, saying that I would just have to trust in God but, to be honest, I wasn't really feeling it.
Trust is the basis of life. Without trust, no human being can live. Trapeze artists offer a beautiful image of this. Flyers have to trust their catchers. They can do the most spectacular doubles, triples, or quadruples, but what finally makes their performance spectacular are the catchers who are there for them at the right time in the right place... It is wonderful to fly in the air free as a bird, but when God isn't there to catch us, all our flying comes to nothing. Let's trust in the Great Catcher. ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen
That space between the old and the new is always the same for me and, whenever I encounter it, I'm reminded of a trapeze artist, letting go of the old bar and hurtling through thin air in the direction of the new one. I think of how everyone always has to let go of whatever it is we've been holding onto and trust - even though there is no hard guarantee that the next thing will be there when we need it.
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