Dreams

I believe that a lot of our living stuff gets sorted out in our dreams.  Certainly, our dreams can be a bit wild, particularly if have watched some thriller of a movie before going to bed.  But, laying those kind of dreams aside, our dreams can help us as we figure out some of the conflicting things about our life.  I am not suggesting that we can become interpreters of dreams, although some people profess to having such a gift, but that we can learn how to listen to what our dreams are saying to us.  When we are dreaming, our sub-conscious gets an opportunity to usurp the rule of our conscious thinking and, inevitably, such can be an enlightening experience.

 

Joseph, the guy who stands in the shadows of the Mary narrative is one of those who obviously learned to listen to his dream life.  He was not expecting his wife-to-be to sit him down one day and say, "Joseph, I am going to have a baby."  When she did he knew that her child was not his child.  For him that was fact.  He was left with several choices.  One of those would have been to end the marriage arrangement before the wedding leaving her to explain her own situation.  He could have just walked away leaving her to deal with the community gossip.  Or, he could go ahead with their plans.  The thing she told him about the Holy Spirit conceiving a child within her was a bit much to believe.  It would be for any of us. 

 

Not knowing what to do, Joseph went to sleep.  As he slept, he dreamed. In his dream an angel appeared and in that appearance, he came to know the right thing.  Now, knowing the right thing does not always mean it gets done.  This we know as well, but Joseph dared to follow what he was hearing when he listened to the dream that overcame his conscious mind which was directing him to take the common sense, course of the least resistance, route.  It can happen that way for us, too,  but first we must learn to listen and then dare to live with the faith that enables us to follow what we hear.