Dreams and Visions

Visions and Dreams

Christmas this year has been visited by personal loss, global disasters, and bizarre warnings of apocalypse. My grandmother died last week at age 98. The tsunami from Indonesia that (at this writing) killed over 55,000, and left hundreds of thousands homeless, is apparently small in comparison to the long-shot but real potential threat to the entire US east coast lurking in the Atlantic.

Things got briefly scarier with the discovery last week that an asteroid collision with Earth was more likely than scientists had seen in recent history: about 1 in 37 around year 2029.

I woke up late this morning to learn that our power was out. Without obvious panic – because I was still half asleep, and had too much wine last night – my mind went quickly to falling-sky scenarios. I must admit that I have a morbid curiosity with impending doom. I think that’s because I’d rather not pay off several stubborn debts and reconcile with my fellow human beings … and I occasionally allow myself the false hope that the second coming would put all that to rest.

I have browsed website-tabloids claiming to have the skinny on the approximate year the earth will shift on it’s axis, all the tectonic plates will swap with ocean bottoms like square dancers, and the next gloomy ice age will begin. Brrrr. I admit that I can identify with the folks who watched OJ for hours steer around the Los Angeles highways in his white Bronco. I’m a secret sensationalist. I feed this insatiable media frenzy. I don’t mean to be callous about the tragedy of the dear people near the Indian Ocean. My heart breaks over such a huge loss.

Maybe Sept 11th altered my outlook a bit. I do remember clearly relating to my wife and a few of my friends at different times a few weeks prior to 9/11/01 that I had a weird feeling that something big was about to happen. I was visiting a counselor (read: shrink without drugs) at the time to keep me from wrecking my marriage, and even he thought that was a bit odd, in a sort of accepting-yet-condescending way. I couldn’t say at all what this event was going to be, or even if it was good or bad, I just knew it was going to be very big. I never had an experience like that prior. Perhaps this has fueled my temptation look for disasters under every rock and weather anomaly. I may be the next budding Nostradamus. I bet he didn’t have revolving debt.

The real tragedy for people like me, is that we can get worked up about this looming disaster crap, and ignore far more dangerous issues sitting in our own backyards, or rather, in our own hearts. So what if Chinese forces attack us from Mexico? So what if both US coasts slide into the sea? I'm all in favor of ecological responsibility, but in reality, death is coming one way or the other. With global drama or without. All at once, or one at a time. The more important question is, what of the state of my heart? And the hearts of those I care about? And those I live near? And everyone else on the planet? It seems to me that drama and disaster (like the evening news) are more appealing to sensationalism junkies like me than taking care of the things that matter most.

For some reason, some of these thoughts had me reading about near-death experiences over the holiday weekend. Strange (read: really strange) stuff. New age folks eat it up like wheat germ. Evangelicals seem suspicious, since people regularly lack any report of judgment and thrones and angels with harps. And nobody asks “why should I let you into heaven” questions, fishing for the I’ve Accepted Jesus As My Personal Savior thing. People leave their body, go through a tunnel, and meet a being of light, but this person is not exactly identified, and he is rather easy on most people. I guess that makes sense, having just died and everything.

I really don’t know what to think of all this stuff, but it does seem to happen frequently. Reports from kids are pretty much the same as adults. Some estimate 8 million in the US alone. There are a couple physicians out there recording information immediately after people are revived. The good/bad experience ratio is about 50/50, unless you interview these same folks days later … then you find that everyone with a negative experience seems to have forgotten about it. It’s just too scary for the mind to hold on to.

And here I am, back to the issue of why I don’t pray. It’s not that I never pray. I just don’t spend time with God the way I do with people I have a healthy relationship with ... or rather, the way I imagine I should. What’s sadder is that I’ll take the time to set these thoughts down in a blog for both of you to read. Maybe I should put these minutes in the “prayer” column.