December 13, 2023
Listen:
Read Along:
The Dream Book
by Colleen Hobbs
When the Lord restores the fortunes of the people of Zion, they shout with joy, “like those who dream.”
My family of origin, however, modeled for me a more skeptical engagement with dreams.
At their breakfast table, my mother and her siblings would bring fresh dreams for a consultation with The Dream Book. What did those overnight stories actually mean? If you believed The Dream Book, the messages could be grim. Did you dream of a kitten? Sorry: “To see one foretells sorrow.” Much better to dream of currants (happiness) and curtains (matrimony). My mother’s family didn’t take the book seriously, yet they looked for explanations, just the same.
The Dream Book primed my mother’s lifelong habit of regularly sharing her notably vivid dreams at breakfast. Her dead father appeared in strange Irish second sight dreams reporting that someone would/would-not be dead soon. My father’s actions in a dream once made her so angry that she woke him to yell at him. And a recurrent dream that every new college student must have dreamt: enrolling in a class and then forgetting it until the final exam
Watching people interact with their dreams, I’ve seen that those who dream can quizzically look for a message’s deeper meaning and second-guess the vision they receive. Advent has the power to let us briefly put down those doubts and, for a minute, just rejoice.
“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.”
“The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”
