Silent Servants...

Silent Servants...

... of the Used, Abused, and Utterly Screwed Up.

A Secular Franciscan looks at the world...
with a more jaundiced eye than ever...
and lots of ellipses for you to fill in the missing text...
(with thanks to Thomas S. Klise for the title)



Wednesday, April 28, 2010

As I'm slowly re-reading

The Last Western by Thomas S. Kile, I'm at a part where the protagonist, Willie, is being stressed almost to his limit, but is finding freedom in his dreams, particularly a dream of flying. Willie is a mystic in the Catholic tradition, though not formal Catholic mysticism, and his flying can be seen as many things in that context. What it's done is reminded me of a similar period in my life.

Caveat: I'm not a mystic. I want to be a saint, but I'm not a mystic. Secondly, my period of stress was caused by nothing like Willie's situation. He's a hero. I'm a schmuck.

Anyway, I was young. I had more than the usual amount of issues compared to most elementary school kids due to hospital stays, surguries, lots of other things. At night, I used to have a flying dream, something like Willie does, but with major differences. I never soared high above clouds like Willie does. My flying was more of a floating, but floating in a direction, and most often close to the ground - near a sidewalk, through hallways, etc., with no active propulsion on my part. I could direct myself, speed up and slow down a bit, but it was still peaceful floating rather than directed flying. I just had to jump slightly into the air to begin. I always had control.

Like Willie, I would wake up refreshed in the morning, and always remember the dream. There was no fear, anger, terror or anything else in these dreams, just peace, and I still felt it when I woke up. I can't remember details now, it was so long ago. I remember having this dream for quite some time.

I'm not really interested in interpreting this dream. Suffice to say that it was a stress relieving dream for a young person who didn't know the first thing about stress. It's just a pleasant thing to remember because it has such pleasant feelings attached to it.

There you go...


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