Q: Does God speak to His people in dreams?
I think so - or rather, I hope so.
I've been thinking about that strange dream I had last week - the one where John is talking to me about black light. Something about the concept of black light has been bugging my brain. So I did a little research - here's what I found:
- Black light makes white look whiter
- Black light is "used to reveal properties of materials that would otherwise remain hidden" (brite-lite.com)
- Black light kills germs and bacteria, which is why you often see them in the entrances of hospitals
So I found it more than coincidence on Sunday when the pastor read this verse in talking about how we see the world based on our mindset:
"To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled." Titus 1:15
In my dream, John is talking about how when you look through black light, things look darker.
For days I've been wondering what it all means. It's a great object lesson, for sure, and I can see where I could use the analogy of black light in a devotional, but what am I really supposed to do with it all?
I'm writing in my journal last night, wondering if I'm reading into all of this too much, and it hits me like a lightening bolt.
When he died, John was working on a solo project called Incandescent (Illuminating Life One Lyric At A Time).
Coincidence? No way. I had forgotten all about that project, which was was he was going to call his solo album, and it was what he named his blog, a blog I have never read until today.
I think I'm supposed to take the concept of black light and write a devotional or chapbook of essays and quotes and poetry about LIGHT. John is in heaven, and he was talking to me about light. The book's not supposed to be about John, but it's supposed to be directed by John, using his Bible as the theme. He had written the most amazing things in the margins of his Bible, things that ended up being so profound that they left the Bible out for people to read at his funeral.
A book about Light. The Incandescence of Black Light.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Did you ever have one of those dreams that leaves you all out of sorts when you wake up? You don't even understand the dream, and yet it directs your mood for the whole day? I dreamt last night about my friend, John, who died in February.
I was in a neighborhood, not mine, and not John's old one. It looked a lot like my mom's street, but I didn't recognize any of the houses, and even weirder, my current neighbor Flow was there. Flow brought me some laundry to fold, and said John's mom, Amy, asked her to ask me to bring the laundry over to Amy's house across the street, and put it away.
When I got there, I was in a room that had a bunch of strange stuff, like some science experiments. I walked around the room as I put away the laundry, stopping to look at stuff and wonder about it.
Then I stopped by this bright, electrial looking, purple glass, like those things you touch that makes your hair stand on end from the static. It was on a pedestal so you could walk all around it, and as I did that, wondering what in the world it was, all of the sudden John was standing there with me.
Oddly enough, I wasn't startled or anything. I just asked him what he was working on.
"It's a black light," he said.
"Does it make everything look purple?" I asked, peering through the purple glass.
"No," he said. "What happens when you look at something through a black light? Look through it and see."
I did, and I saw everything in the room very darkly.
He said, "See! When you look through black light everything is blacker!" And he was excited about it but calm. (Very unlike John, who when he got excited could hardly contain himself.)
"Amazing," I said.
So we were standing there next to each other looking at the light, and I had my arms full of folded laundry, and I kind of leaned my head onto his shoulder for just a second, and started crying softly.
"Do you know how much everyone misses you?" I said. "This stuff just isn't fun anymore without you."
And he smiled and said, "I know. I'm sorry."
Even though he didn't reach out to comfort me or anything (John never was a hugger, at least with me), it was comforting all the same. So we just stood there looking at the light for a minute, him smiling, me silently crying, both of us looking at this purplish light, and then I woke up.
The dream itself isn't that weird. My subconscious probably unloaded a bunch of miscellaneous stuff at once (including the mental note I made before I went to bed that I needed to do laundry, and the fact that'd I had been thinking about John earlier in the day because I needed someone to design an EP cover). What has me off-kilter are two things: that when I put my head on John's shoulder for a second, he was real, not a ghost. And second, that there was something about the light he was trying to tell me that I still don't understand.
I don't remember being startled (or even excited) at seeing him, or distraught with sorrow. It was all very calm, and ... normal. But even now, as I recount the dream, I can't stop crying when I get to the part where we're standing there looking at this light. I wish I understood what it meant.
I was in a neighborhood, not mine, and not John's old one. It looked a lot like my mom's street, but I didn't recognize any of the houses, and even weirder, my current neighbor Flow was there. Flow brought me some laundry to fold, and said John's mom, Amy, asked her to ask me to bring the laundry over to Amy's house across the street, and put it away.
When I got there, I was in a room that had a bunch of strange stuff, like some science experiments. I walked around the room as I put away the laundry, stopping to look at stuff and wonder about it.
Then I stopped by this bright, electrial looking, purple glass, like those things you touch that makes your hair stand on end from the static. It was on a pedestal so you could walk all around it, and as I did that, wondering what in the world it was, all of the sudden John was standing there with me.
Oddly enough, I wasn't startled or anything. I just asked him what he was working on.
"It's a black light," he said.
"Does it make everything look purple?" I asked, peering through the purple glass.
"No," he said. "What happens when you look at something through a black light? Look through it and see."
I did, and I saw everything in the room very darkly.
He said, "See! When you look through black light everything is blacker!" And he was excited about it but calm. (Very unlike John, who when he got excited could hardly contain himself.)
"Amazing," I said.
So we were standing there next to each other looking at the light, and I had my arms full of folded laundry, and I kind of leaned my head onto his shoulder for just a second, and started crying softly.
"Do you know how much everyone misses you?" I said. "This stuff just isn't fun anymore without you."
And he smiled and said, "I know. I'm sorry."
Even though he didn't reach out to comfort me or anything (John never was a hugger, at least with me), it was comforting all the same. So we just stood there looking at the light for a minute, him smiling, me silently crying, both of us looking at this purplish light, and then I woke up.
The dream itself isn't that weird. My subconscious probably unloaded a bunch of miscellaneous stuff at once (including the mental note I made before I went to bed that I needed to do laundry, and the fact that'd I had been thinking about John earlier in the day because I needed someone to design an EP cover). What has me off-kilter are two things: that when I put my head on John's shoulder for a second, he was real, not a ghost. And second, that there was something about the light he was trying to tell me that I still don't understand.
I don't remember being startled (or even excited) at seeing him, or distraught with sorrow. It was all very calm, and ... normal. But even now, as I recount the dream, I can't stop crying when I get to the part where we're standing there looking at this light. I wish I understood what it meant.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Confessions of an Office Supply Addict
by Joanne Brokaw
I confess that I have an abnormal addiction to office supplies. Pens, paper, mechanical pencils, notepads, journals, paper clips, you name it. I can't walk out of Office Depot without making a purchase, whether it's a bag of rubber bands or a packet of legal pads. I have a notebook in every room in my house, just in case I have a story idea and can’t make it to my desk in time. I carry a notepad in my purse, and have a supply of pens in my car. When I can’t find paper, I write on my hands (my version of the palm pilot). When I see a blank journal that I find attractive, I buy it, even though I couldn’t fill the ones I already have if I wrote for a two hours every day for the next ten years. I have loads of supplies that I haven’t even opened, and yet I can’t fight the temptation to buy more.
I stopped in at the craft store recently to get some elastic to restring the beads on my watch, and hit the jackpot with Hawaiian-themed notepads for only $1 each. I recently ran out of my “I have one nerve left and you’re getting on it” sticky notes, and notepaper with orange sunsets and grass huts seems more inspiring for my daily to-do list. (Although, I do need to replace my sticky notes. I use them for clients who have tipped me over the scales of sanity. They laugh and then ask themselves, “Is she serious? Or is she joking?” If you have to ask ...)
My favorite piece of office equipment is probably my stapler. I staple business cards to folders, pages of interview notes to a copy of the final article, cancelled checks to paid invoices. Paper clips are so non-committal. Nothing makes a permanent statement like a staple. When the papers are stapled, the job is finished. Usually.
I'm also a manila folder junkie. Every new project, every piece of paper that I might need to find later, every newspaper clipping or story idea gets its own file. I keep the work-in-progress on my desk, and put the folders I’m finished with in a plastic bin behind my chair until I can find time to put them away in the filing cabinets in the office I can't work in anymore because it's too full of junk.
Which is pretty ironic, isn’t it? All of the office supplies available to me and I still can’t organize my office. I have stackable trays for files I’m working with, and the folders still spill over onto the desk. I have a three-tiered bin on wheels to hold the CDs and press kits for projects waiting to be reviewed, and there are piles of materials overflowing on the floor. I have plastic bins, desktop organizers, clipboards, calendars, filing cabinets and shelves, and I still have to hunt for paper clips, scotch tape, computer paper and rubber bands, and I can rarely remember what day it is without looking at my cell phone. I just bought two boxes of pens, and right now the only thing I can find to write with is my favorite aloha-flowered rollergel pen, which happens to be useless because I can’t find an ink refill that fits the barrel.
But that’s ok. They’re having a sale on office supplies at Wal-Mart. And if they don’t have ink refills there, Staples is right across the street. I could use a new staple remover.
by Joanne Brokaw
I confess that I have an abnormal addiction to office supplies. Pens, paper, mechanical pencils, notepads, journals, paper clips, you name it. I can't walk out of Office Depot without making a purchase, whether it's a bag of rubber bands or a packet of legal pads. I have a notebook in every room in my house, just in case I have a story idea and can’t make it to my desk in time. I carry a notepad in my purse, and have a supply of pens in my car. When I can’t find paper, I write on my hands (my version of the palm pilot). When I see a blank journal that I find attractive, I buy it, even though I couldn’t fill the ones I already have if I wrote for a two hours every day for the next ten years. I have loads of supplies that I haven’t even opened, and yet I can’t fight the temptation to buy more.
I stopped in at the craft store recently to get some elastic to restring the beads on my watch, and hit the jackpot with Hawaiian-themed notepads for only $1 each. I recently ran out of my “I have one nerve left and you’re getting on it” sticky notes, and notepaper with orange sunsets and grass huts seems more inspiring for my daily to-do list. (Although, I do need to replace my sticky notes. I use them for clients who have tipped me over the scales of sanity. They laugh and then ask themselves, “Is she serious? Or is she joking?” If you have to ask ...)
My favorite piece of office equipment is probably my stapler. I staple business cards to folders, pages of interview notes to a copy of the final article, cancelled checks to paid invoices. Paper clips are so non-committal. Nothing makes a permanent statement like a staple. When the papers are stapled, the job is finished. Usually.
I'm also a manila folder junkie. Every new project, every piece of paper that I might need to find later, every newspaper clipping or story idea gets its own file. I keep the work-in-progress on my desk, and put the folders I’m finished with in a plastic bin behind my chair until I can find time to put them away in the filing cabinets in the office I can't work in anymore because it's too full of junk.
Which is pretty ironic, isn’t it? All of the office supplies available to me and I still can’t organize my office. I have stackable trays for files I’m working with, and the folders still spill over onto the desk. I have a three-tiered bin on wheels to hold the CDs and press kits for projects waiting to be reviewed, and there are piles of materials overflowing on the floor. I have plastic bins, desktop organizers, clipboards, calendars, filing cabinets and shelves, and I still have to hunt for paper clips, scotch tape, computer paper and rubber bands, and I can rarely remember what day it is without looking at my cell phone. I just bought two boxes of pens, and right now the only thing I can find to write with is my favorite aloha-flowered rollergel pen, which happens to be useless because I can’t find an ink refill that fits the barrel.
But that’s ok. They’re having a sale on office supplies at Wal-Mart. And if they don’t have ink refills there, Staples is right across the street. I could use a new staple remover.
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