WHAT DREAMS ARE THESE?
I dreamed last night that I was a character in The Seventh Seal, the classic dark existential vision of Ingmar Bergman. Unless you are Woody Allen on an acute neurotic high, this is probably not a good thing.
It is perhaps understandable given that I am in the midst of my annual winter cold-cum-crud and was probably just hallucinating in my sleep. What is odd is that I had not seen or thought about the film since my days as a would-be pipe smoking intellectual during my last year of high school.
But my fitful sleep soon gave over to a photo-realistic session of highlight-cut-paste-and-edit on my computer, a perfect, if tedious repetition of my day at work. The triumph of the mundane over the fabulous.
Finally there were angel and flowers. Not angels of death, but the sweetly winged creatures in flowing robes with trumpets and harps that adorn Christmas Tree tops this time of year. Now I’m not one of the statistically astonishing number of Americans who believe in angels literally interceding in our daily lives. But recently the wonderful folks of my congregation, the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock were definitely angels to me and my family.
To make a long story short by daughter Heather and her family fell victim to the hard times. Out of work, they lost their car and were in danger of eviction. Folks at church came through with the money for an inexpensive but reliable used car so that she can look for work. There were other nice donations, and lots of advice on looking for help, housing and even possible job leads.
Come to think of it, the faces of those angels in my dreams did look strangely familiar.
Dream on, oh fevered brain, dream on.
