Strange Lucid Dream

I am not trying to make any predictions here; I just wish to report a very lucid dream.

This morning I woke up around 4.30am and for the next 2 hours just dozed. It was sometime during those two hours that I had a very lucid dream. I was in an unfamiliar city; the sky seemed very dull yet only had a scattered cloud cover. It was probably close to twilight as it appears to be just after sunset. I felt lost as though I couldn't find my way, everything was unfamiliar to me. I looked up at the horizon of the city and could see in the distance first one then two large cloudlike formations which had multiple little mushroom clouds rising out of each one. I had the overwhelming feeling - this is it! Then I woke up! I pondered for a while and dismissed it falling back into a light sleep, this time it wasn't like a dream because I could swear I heard an audible voice say to me - not for another week! Almost simultaneously I saw a date which I can't remember clearly yet I feel it was in the first week of August and I am pretty sure I also saw a time showing around 6:53pm.

Ok, it was just a dream I guess but I don't normally have this type of dream - it seemed out of the blue! So just in case there is anything to it, I thought I'd post it for records sake!

For now we see through a glass, darkly

The title comes from Paul the apostle 1 Corinthians 13 KJV. I believe it to be a reference to our understanding and inability to see the future clearly.

Today I coined a phrase that embraces this problem - Hindsight gives us a perfect vision of our future!

Considering hindsight is always 20:20 vision, when we are able to embrace it and learn, we can also look ahead with confidence.

As always, we have no control over the circumstances that befall us, however, we have FULL control over how we react to them!

Blessing

I am taking a journey through the wilderness when I come across a fellow traveler who is suffering from exposure, hunger and thirst. I offer this stranger of what I have to provide - shelter, food and drink. The pride of the stranger gets in the way and refuses my assistance insisting on doing it all himself! He goes on his, way. The next day I come across the same stranger a little more worse for wear, again I offer assistance and again it is refused, he goes on his way. The next day I come across the same stranger, this time he is dead! Who's to blame? His salvation was within his grasp but for his own misguided reasons he rejected it! God's blessings flow without ceasing and are available 24/7 to all who will reach out and grasp them. Does this mean that if we do, we won't suffer? In this life we will always experience some suffering because it is the nature of this existence but we also have access to unlimited blessing, we have but to swallow our pride and reach out. Only then will we be at peace with the suffering that this life brings.

Love

The nature of love is not conveyed with words but rather impulses of the spirit. When a child tells its parent - " I love you", far more is conveyed then words can express, likewise the parent to the child.

So are the words necessary? They are nice to hear and are always a wonderful reassurance but they are not totally necessary for the impulse to be experienced. Does the love stop when the two are apart? Is it affected by distance apart? If my mother or father were on the moon are another planet or even another galaxy - would that affect my love for them or their love for me? I KNOW it wouldn't! Both my parents are now beyond this existence and yet their love still is felt by me and my love for them is still alive and grows.

True peace can only be found where such love is known and experienced - this leads to true contentment in that relationship for two such hearts will always be united in love.

So why does love sometimes appear to die? I don't have the answers but here are a few thoughts:- Was it really love to begin with or something we thought was love? Love is a living thing and must be mutually fed - was it being fed? Mutually?

We cannot control the heart of another, we cannot control the influences that the other's heart will be exposed to nor can we control how the other reacts to those influences! The best we can do is to love unconditionally and let go! I believe the old proverb was spot on -

If you love something , then let it go free, if it remains with you after that, then you occupy a place in its heart, if it goes and does not return, then you have never occupied a place in its heart!

My heart is like a budding flower

Which by God's love does grow-

Though stretching its heart towards the sun

Till blooming its heart does not show.

When unveiled, the splendor of such a flower

Moves hearts and brings joys untold.

Behold now my heart holds far more power,

Than the heart of a flower can hold!

JPS 1974

Time

The past is just a memory - can't be touched as such, only remembered! The future exists as a hope an imagination - can't be touched as such just a thought! The present doesn't exist at all because it is the passage of the future to the past and can't be measured! Therefore, from the future's intangible thought, to the past's remembered experience - we encounter the present's immeasurable moment! We ARE eternity!

A favourite saying of mine comes from King Solomon - "That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been. "