Dreams. . .

Mike Gainor lets a curious woman see what it’s like to carry his cross.
Big Sur, CA
by Wil Robinson, 1988

Awakening from a dream a few days ago, the details totally escaped me. I did, however, have a sense it was so earth bound; every thing I’d been doing was limited by natural science laws. I wondered why.

In some dreams I’ve flown like an eagle, soaring above Earth. In those dreams there was a wire mesh high up that I couldn’t get through. Those dreams went on for a number of years until the last one, in which I was able to slip by the wire. I know those dreams were symbolic, and were stuff in my unconscious mind trying to speak in images to my conscious mind.

The last few days I’ve pondered just why my unconscious mind would obey natural laws. In a dream I could do anything, right?

As I thought about it, I know the difference between dreams that are symbolic and those that are more reality based, with normal Earthly limits.

That started me thinking about limits that my mind imposes on me when I’m not asleep.

Science, as taught in school, taught me certain things about the natural world. I believe them. I obey them. Other things I just somehow learned, and accepted, that were just a part of living. Cultural Norms.

In the 1950s and 60s, like others, I learned to question things. My generation wasn’t the first to question “common sense.” The truth is that the Earth is not flat, and the Sun doesn’t revolve around Earth.

Yet there persists some nagging questions about things learned.

Over two thousand years ago, Yeshua warned we’d been taught wrong, and set about to teach Truth. Check out His “Sermon on the Mount,” for instance.

But, one might point out, parts of the Bible are like my dreams, filed with parables, symbolic imagery. Other parts of the Bible are based on historical fact, though some people dispute even that. Which parts are meant literally? Which are symbolic? Which parts could be either, or both?

Page Two

That brings me to Mike, pictured in the photo. We met early one foggy morning. He was walking along California’s Coastal Highway, Highway 1, near Morro Bay. When I saw him carrying a cross, I stopped We talked for a moment, then he headed north while I went on to work. We stayed in touch, and eventually got together in Big Sur.

Mike had carried the cross from the East Coast. He had an interesting story. Well, a lot of them. It started in church one day when he heard a simple scripture.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. "
Matthew 16:24

Mike thought about it. I forget how long he thought about it, but eventually he made a wooden cross and hit the road. Just like that.

Mike walked all day, and slept where he stopped. Along the way, he met a lot of wonderful people.

Mike learned about their lives, their stories, and made many friends. Many offered him food, many a place to sleep out of bad weather. When Mike got sick, a person gave him a place to stay. One man gave him a pickup truck and a travel trailer. From that point he’d walk carrying his cross, then hitch-hike back to get his truck.

Mile also ruffled more than a few feathers. He told me he’d been laughed at many times. Ridiculed. Harassed. He’d been beaten. One town actually ran him out.

Throughout Mike’s journey, G-D provided what he needed, when he needed it. It’s not a journey for everyone. But it was Mike’s journey, and it was his story.

More important than Mike’s story was the Truth shared along the way. Mike shared Jesus’s Story.

Modern science imposes limits. Religion imposes limits, too. It seems to me True Faith leaps beyond Earthly limits and the self-imposted limits of dreams.

L-RD Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

I Wanna Go Home. . .

Hours before dawn this morning, while walking in the desert, I came upon a small group of young men and an old flatbed truck. The men appeared to be American Indians. A foal trotted along side the truck, falling on a sharp hook that protruded from the truck’s bed. Blood oozed from the wound. I suggested that the foal needed attention, and though there was some dissent, they finally agreed. I had to open a cattle crossing and carry the foal a short way to a large ranch house. The foal was taken somewhere by someone, while the group of men remained. Eventually they led me desert to an older man in the house. I asked to use the toilet, and the old man and the group of men lead me through a large living room toward the back of the house. We walked by a number of bedrooms and through a large community sleeping room with many single beds in it. All along the way through the house many of the mens’ wives greeted us. They appeared to know me and that I was coming. Finally we emerged through a doorway into a restaurant.

In the restaurant, under bright lights, I looked closely at the men. They were older than they looked. I looked again and saw that they were my age and I knew them vaguely. They were all saying to me that they were happy to have be back. One man showed me a block of soap that they’d developed for a car wash, and wanted me to tell them why it didn’t work now, though had worked several weeks ago. I had no clue, yet it came to me that a few weeks ago the soap was new, now it was aged and had lost its potency.

Another of the men spoke of his wife, in hushed, intimate, tones; she’d been injured some time ago and the insurance company paid for complete restricting of her jaw. In a more recent injury, the insurance was doing little to help. As he spoke it dawned on me that I’d known these men as a child.

A woman appeared then and we spoke about my going away, and that I regretted it. She said it was what it was, and that now I was back and that too was as it was to be. She was happy I was back.

Soon we wandered back into the house and the older man I’d met earlier showed me my bed, saying it was my old bed. It was in the community bedroom with many other single beds. As I lay down, the woman that I’d spoken came and lay next to me. She said she missed how when we were kids we’d all slept together on the floor.

I felt content. I felt appreciated. I was home. I now only vaguely knew I’d had a life away, but now I, home, that life was a million miles away. In the distance ‘yotes (coyotes) sang to a tranquil yellow dawn.

I awoke from my dream only minutes before the alarm sounded. I went to the kitchen to make my wife some coffee for her commute to her office. As I did so I thought of the dream. I began to connect the house in the dream to a ranch house I remember as a child. In the house lived a girl that was like a sister to me. In the house there was a room behind the living room in which we’d played. She told me that it was where the ranch hands once lived. I was born only a few miles from her, on a small ranch, in the desert, in the foothills of a mountain range, a hundred of so miles east of Los Angeles.

The dream and the reality of my own life merged. A childhood friend was a Mexican-American Indian, the son of my Father’s First Sergeant. My Father had built up a small ranch soon after WWII, and invited to it a woman he’d met in England while staging with the 101st Airborne Division for D-Day. She was the daughter of a Welsh miner, from a small village in South Wales. When my Father met her, she was a nurse stationed near the Army post. Their first date was a true blind date; it was in a black out. She arrived by boat in New York, and they married. I was born on the ranch a few years later.

After this I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your old men will have dreams,
and your young men will see visions.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on the male and female slaves in those days.
I will display wonders
in the heavens and on the earth:
blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the great and awe- inspiring Day of the Lord comes.
Then everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved,
for there will be an escape
for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
as the Lord promised,
among the survivors the Lord calls. —Joel 2:28-32 (emphasis added)

Mulling all this over, I recalled that my parents had appeared briefly in the dream, also. I also saw in the dream that I’d been very unhappy at myself that I’d left the ranch, which is how I’ve felt in reality. I left the ranch, was torn from the ranch, why my Father’s National Guard infantry company was activated for deployment and combat in Korea. I never knew why my Father sold the ranch, but he must have felt couldn’t afford to hire ranch manager to run the ranch in his absence.

After my Father returned from Korea, we never returned to the ranch or that small desert town, except on an occasional visit. That burned beneath my skin; it galled me throughout my life. I can still taste the bitterness. I not only had been uprooted, but my Father was taken from me when I so very much needed stability and him. I also wanted the simplicity and security of the ranch I knew in my child mind. Yes, my Mother settled us on the coast south of Los Angeles, and my Welsh aunt came to live with us. Yes, they spoke Welsh and I learned it too, though don’t speak many words now, for its long been forgotten. Yes, I came to love the salt air, the smell of the sea, the cry of the gulls, and the water—oh, the blue-green salt water. But something was torn from within me that never returned—at least not until this morning’s predawn dream.

The sense of contentment, the feeling of appreciation for me by those dream people on that dreamed ranch in the desert still warm me now, several hours later. And the feeling of welcome and the hugs of true friendship are so pleasant. What I take from this dream is that there shall come a time that I will one day go home and this life, with all its highs and lows, its beauty and ugliness, will fade away and the true reality of who I am will come to be. I will be home, among true friends, among those that truly love me, truly accept me.

I love You LORD!

Dreams and Why I don’t usually Dwell on Them

Dreams come easily to me during the night. While I rarely sleep during the daytime,when I do I’ll dream then too. Mostly I don’t dwell on my dreams, letting them alone to have their way, and be forgotten. Some, though, are so vivid, so intense, that I have to write them down so that I can later return to them to take a closer look.

Early one morning recently, I dreamed two interesting dreams that persisted in my mind for some time. In one, I am on my touring bicycle, in the left lane of a road. I am about to turn left on to a highway that rises sharply upward into the mountains. A car that might be a Land Rover with a large pipe grill guard appears from my left, and looks like it is going to force me to move right. I desperately want to stay in the left lane, and I refuse to move over. As the vehicle comes up next to me, I seem to know now what the driver is going to do; he’s going to let me catch a ride with him. I grasp the front grill guard with my left hand and the Land Rover powers me up the hill. All is going well until we come to an overhead bridge crossing the highway. It looks like I won’t be able to make it underneath it. This doesn’t make sense, of course, as I am riding next to the man. We do make it beneath the bridge, and I see that there is plenty of room. Then we come to another bridge. I am not going to make it under this one. Some how I am now on top of his vehicle and I must ride on to the overhead bridge. I do so, and stop. I look around and I see that this isn’t a normal bridge, and that I’m stuck up on what appears to be a roof across the highway with no way done.

In another bicycle dream the following day, I was on same stretch of highway. The other vehicle was going the same speed as I was, and we came to the top of the mountain at the same time. But apparently the other vehicle was in need of a rest, or its occupants. I offered to take them to my grandparents home, which in the dream was close to that mountain pass. We arrived and were sorting out where we were going to sleep, when I saw my grandmother sleeping on the deck. She got up and I thought it odd that she was there, as I’d thought my grandparents were away. Then my grandfather came in and we spoke for a minute. I left the room and the people I’d brought to the house began to speak with my grandparents in either Norwegian or Dutch. I thought that odd, as I didn’t think my grandparents spoke any other language except English. At some point we were all getting ready to leave, and I had a plant I was going to leave with my grandparents. I also was leaving some stuff in a locker in their house.

Looking at these dreams, I discover that the highway is Highway 101, the old 101, from back in the early 1970s, where it ascends from San Luis Obispo, CA, to a pass near Cuesta Peak. The highway continues north along the Salinas river, past Atascadero and Paso Robles, then onward to San Miguel and Camp Roberts. I am very familiar with this highway. I lived in the area many years. Back to the dream. It seems that in the first dream someone is trying to help me, and ends up getting me into a mess. In the second dream, the people are alongside, but later at the summit I help them. The end of the dream is okay.

This morning it occurred to me why I don’t immediately mull over my dreams when I arise. The day begins too quickly; the clock alarm sounds, I rise up to awake the dawn. . .

My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth.

—Psalm 57:8-11

. . . though certainly not as King David describes.

Up at 5:30. First things first, letting out the dogs, feeding the cats. Making a salad for my wife to take to work, and coffee in a travel mug for her to sip during her commute. Wishing her well as she leaves the house. Asking of the Lord His blessings upon our family, to watch over us, to work in and through us—all while cleaning up the kitchen mess. Doing dishes left from the night before. Adding to a list kept handy things to buy from the store on the next trip. Thinking of things to be done during the day. Letting the dogs inside, giving them each a biscuit.

Whew! Deep breath. . . fix a bowl of oatmeal, add honey, pour a cup of coffee. Open Daily Tehillim and find the day’s Psalm. Today it’s Psalm 39. King David is writing the Psalm “To the Chief Musician; for Yetoodoon.” I switch over to another web page to search on Yetoodoon, wanting to know to whom King David refers. I’m easily distracted. I look at an email. I think of something that I want to do tomorrow, that needs some preparation today. I push my head back to the Psalm. It’s a Psalm about the fragility of humankind. According to one commentary (Jamieson, Fauset, and Brown), “. . .depressing views of his frailty and the prosperity of the wicked, the Psalmist, tempted to murmur, checks the expression of his feelings, till, led to regard his case aright, he prays for a proper view of his condition and for the divine compassion.”

Behold, thou hast made my days as handbreadths; And my life- time is as nothing before thee: Surely every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.

Psalm 39:6

“David composed this chapter while suffering from a painful and debilitating illness, which caused him such discomfort and distress that he had to restrain himself from speaking harshly against God.” — Daily Tehillim

I recall a sermon in which the preacher explained that King Solomon was severely depressed when he wrote Ecclesiastics, and declared Vanity, Vanity. All is Vanity. The sermon attempted to counter this depressing notion; it echoed the theme, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Huh! I suppose depression ran in the family then, as King David says it too. Or perhaps there is another way of looking at life here on Earth. “In our greatest health and prosperity, every man is altogether vanity, he cannot live long; he may die soon. This is an undoubted truth, but we are very unwilling to believe it. Therefore let us pray that God would enlighten our minds by his Holy Spirit, and fill our hearts with his grace, that we may be ready for death every day and hour.” — Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary.

Psalm 39, while somber, teaches “the proper approach to suffering. David does not purport to give a definitive explanation for suffering, and he acknowledges the instinctive drive to challenge divine justice during periods of pain and anguish. He demands, however, that a person overcome this natural tendency and approach suffering as a call to introspection and repentance. Rather than insist on his righteousness and cast allegations against God, one should instead recognize his frailty and shortcomings and appeal to the Almighty for compassion and forgiveness.” — Daily Tehillim.

It’s almost nine o’clock in the morning. There are people to pray for, things to do, maybe even places to go. And I still want to watch the rest of a YouTube video of a sermon by Pastor David Wilkerson, “Moving your Mountain.”

And what of last night’s dreams? I have yet to take a complete look at the two bicycle dreams, let alone the many that I’ve had since. Are dreams meant to be examined, explained? Or do they operate on us without intervention?

Wait. I return to Daily Tehillim commentary on Psalm 39 in which the author says, “David does not purport to give a definitive explanation for suffering. . .” Here’s the rub, as the expression goes: good people and children suffer. Who can watch shows about St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and the kids it treats without feeling so badly for the children with cancer. Children. Suffering. Dying. We question why bad things happen. We question why bad things happen to good people. The Lord Y’shuaJesus was asked about a man’s disabilities and what sin was it that caused it. Job’s wife, responding to Job’s suffering, told him to curse G-d and die. It’s G-d’s fault. He’s to blame. Should we raise our fists toward Heaven, cursing G-d for the suffering of good and innocent people?

The lesson from King David is that despite suffering, whether ours or others’, we must hold our tongues, restrain ourselves, from speaking harshly against G-d. We must learn to find some contentment—as Apostle Paul did—in all things. The question may not be why people suffer, why we suffer, but rather are we so righteous, so good, that we shouldn’t suffer. Isn’t that vanity?

Early this morning. . .

. . . I some how found myself in a lumber yard standing with my father. Together we looked at the back end of a lowboy trailer much like the one I once used in the military to haul armored vehicles and howitzers. We discussed how to add a piece of wood to protect the back where the tracks of the vehicles had chewed up the wood. We decided upon a piece of hardwood, attached so that it could protect the other wood, take the abuse, and be easily replaced.

Then a fork driver came over to put a load of lumber on the trailer, which morphed into a flatbed. My mother appeared and told the lift driver to put the load toward the back. He questioned her about this decision, and I supported it, pointing out that the weight center of the trailer was different than the physical center.

I recall having some sort of music player, and telling my mother it could store lots of music, even the Welsh music that was now unplayable, as it was vinyl records and we had no record player.

The trailer was nearly loaded now, and my father asked if the strip of wood was ready yet. I started toward a building and looked back to say that I’d be back, I only needed to get a sweatshirt and use the bathroom. I headed toward a large, steel building, not unlike the one in which I worked for many years at Camp Roberts.

As I approached my own bathroom, in my own bedroom, the steel workshop faded away and I awoke.

That’s the second dream in two days in which Camp Roberts appeared. In the other dream, the night before last, I had returned to Camp Roberts, and was once again wearing olive drab, and heading to an old warehouse where the supply office would issue me steel-toed boots.

If I literally returned to Camp Roberts, to the East Garrison where once I spent ten years, that steel building and the other wooden buildings would be long gone. Even as I was leaving that place, before I entered the Forest Service, a new, large maintenance facility had been christened and moving begun.

I remember my fist day in that steel maintenance building, which was fairly new at the time. I met Sargent First Class Edwin Spickert. People were pretty much on first name basis then, and I was introduced as Terry. Ed said, “I knew a Terry once, and you sure don’t look like her!” I became “Robi,” then and there. I stayed Robi until I hung up, or layed out in the trash dump, my uniform with its bittersweet memories.

Ed worked with the designers and engineers planning the new maintenance building many years later. He made Warrant Officer, too, as did several of the other “old timers” at the shop. When I started there there were a handful of “new guys” like me, and a hand full of these older guys who’d been around what seemed like forever. When I left after ten years, most of the old timers were still there, most of those formerly new guys, too. But there had come a hoard of others, as the shop grew and grew, busting out its seams.

I learned a lot while at Camp Roberts. I worked hard. It wasn’t easy. I made mistakes. When I left, I left. I never went back. At least, not until my dream the other night, and the one early this morning. I made a lot of mistakes while I at Camp Roberts. I’ve made a lot of mistakes everywhere I’ve ever been. Hind sight, it is often pointed out, is 20/20.

Today, opening the online Bible to which I often refer to, I found before me:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

There are a number of people that it would me nice to say something like, “Hey, I really learned a lot from you.” There are a lot of people that I could also say, “Hey, I’m sorry.” I still have nagging regrets of things done and things left undone. I appreciate that regardless of my life, imperfect in my eyes as it is in others’, is seen as perfect in my Savior, Y’shuaJesus. And I am thankful that there is now no condemnation for all of us who are in Messiah Y’shuaJesus. Thank You, Y’shua!

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Of Lawlessness, Last Days, and Dreams

We are told that in the Last Days before the return of our King, lawlessness will increase. Looking back throughout our human history, we can see periods of war, famine, plague. Certainly. But something is afoot these days that sets us beyond what has come before.

This week in the news North Korea tells foreigners to leave South Korea as it struts its stuff like a roster before a cock fight. The Mid East is bathed in blood as secular dictators are being pushed aside so that a religious government might rise in the ashes. And then there is Iran. In America violence seems rampant, erupting in the most unlikely places. Throughout, ordinary people are frustrated, angry, rude, unkind, and don’t even know why.

It feels like the Spirit of G-d is departing–that no longer is evil somewhat reigned. We are left to suffer the consequences of our sins.

This is just the way it happens. Does a father forever continue to treat his children as infants? At some point a father looks at his child through tears and says, “You are on your own now.”

Yet we are also told that:

. . .in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. . .

Acts 2:17

So between what feels as with drawl of the Spirit and a pouring out of the Spirit?

It is a time for us to learn endurance, patient waiting, faith. We have not lost the Spirit of G-d within us. G-d has not departed from us. We are anointed with the oil of gladness, and can, if we choice, revel in the joy of the Holy Ghost. Today. But we must make an effort to seek G-d, through His Son Y’shuaJesus, by the power of the Spirit. We must rest in the LORD now, find His peace amidst the lawlessness of this present world.

As things fall apart, we must recognize that the Lord is with us. We must rally beneath His Banner of Love. We must be holy, must be wholly His. We must forgive insults and act wisely. We must not be alarmed. And when we dream dreams we must pay attention to them, be encouraged by them. For it is when the dreams come to us, G-d may speak His quiet voice, encouraging us, healing us, changing us, and instructing us.

Lord Bless, Keep, and Shine upon you and yours. . .