i had a dream

maybe i was sun-sapped last night, but i had an odd dream. my dreams have been very vivid lately, and many have been practically psychadelic. this one was interesting in that it was completely different from any dream i've ever had. in it, i drove to my office in the administration building of gordon-conwell theological seminary where i have a relatively new professorship (fyi: i don't work @ a seminary; i'm a lawyer hoping to be a priest soon, and to my chagrin i am singularly unqualified for academia, but i did matriculate @ gcts north of boston w/ an eye toward working on a ph.d.; instead, i stopped after my m. div. and opted for parish ministry).

our story continues -- i arrive @ work to find my colleagues abuzz about the "holtz memo" (the names in this dream have been changed to protect the orthodox; and the substituted names take on a distinctly irish character). during the night, the chief members of the administration had decided to fire practically the entire faculty. obviously, tenure wasn't much on my mind as i dreamt, but @ least the laws of physics appeared to apply uniformly, which is not always the case w/ my noctrnal self. the memo stated that parseghian and rockne and most of the senior faculty members -- my former professors and mentors -- were not free to inhabit their offices and teach their classes. there was no rationale provided, but it was commonly assumed the firing were motivated by a desire to punish these men and women for their orthodoxy. even the president of the seminary, dr. tony rice, had been canned.

i took one of my most cherished professors to coffee, and instead of needing consolation, he was stoic. even more than stoicism, dr. ismail was almost jubilant, basking in the fact that he had been found worthy to suffer w/ christ. what troubled me in the light of this morning was that i, along w/ 4 or 5 other professors, still had my job. what? why did i escape the axe? was i so young that i didn't know what was really "up" on the hill? was i attractive b/c i kept the institution under the salary cap, or did the men @ the top think they could muzzle me? or, even worse, had i simply not done or said anything that warranted my expulsion? was i being left alone b/c i had left christ alone?

then i woke up.

i've no idea what, if anything, the dream meant. maybe i'm a bit sad to see my church on the brink of schism, with some of the people whom i most respect poised to bolt the church for some new-fangled anglican-american offshoot (i respect people on the other side, too, and i'm disappointed w/ the rhetoric of both sides by now, to be honest). maybe i'm tired of being on the sidelines working as a law clerk while i complete the process of formation required of episcopal priests. perhaps i feel some kind of loss b/c my friend caleb is embarking on an alaskan adventure w/ kodiak baptist mission, and my friend bart is already a curate a continent away. maybe i'm still hearing the siren song of catholicism, thinking of tom howard and newman, and i'd be well served not to read peter kreeft just before nodding off. or it could be that i've had the emerging church on my mind lately, wondering whether the phenomenon is a godsend or another abhorrent fracture in the church. i can't tell you, but i do know i often feel like i'm being left behind (and not in a lahaye/jenkins kind of way). i don't even know why i decided to write about it. i just thought it was curious, and perhaps it's indicative of my soul's unrest these days. if there are any josephs out there, maybe you could offer up some interp. otherwise, i'll be here. dreaming.