2004 Dream

Peter had a very vivid dream the night of 6/7 November 2004 and wrote about it in detail the next day before it faded completely. He did post the story on a separate blog that was later lost in cyberspace. The file was buried away in a nondescript folder on a separate drive and Peter gave up looking for it. So when it was rediscovered accidentally, Peter decided he ought to post it on this site, and what fitting spot than the first for 2019. That's possibly a positive omen. Peter wrote:

"Barb and I visited St. Judes Church one Sunday. It was crowded and we were shown a place to sit to the side. Unlike how I knew St. Judes of past years, there were a small number of rows of bench seating against the wall facing inward towards the main seating which faced toward the front. Unfortunately we could not see the front. What I was hearing was not clear. We had arrived late and felt a little out of it.

"As though guided we left our seats and made our way outside the church. Even as we crossed the main area of the church I did not notice what was happening at the front. I had the sense that a sermon was going on. We walked behind this church as though on a planned path. We passed the burned out shell of the old St. Judes Church. The exposed timbers were all black. The brickwork seemed to be literally hanging there in places. It seemed to be a dangerous area to inspect. At any time a whole area of brick work could fall.

"We came to a new part of St. Judes. It was an architectural marvel. I do not remember how the outside looked except to say that the emphasis was not on the outside but in the inside. I presumed that architect Howard Raggett had something to do with the design because it was so ‘out there.’ The space was enclosed with a very high concrete ceiling with exposed bearers. These bearers had the natural appearance of being the rippled underbellies of giant worms, about twenty of them all holding up the ceiling as low rigid arches. As a result there were no supporting columns and the space that was made was powerful. The largest area of the floor was given to the flat centre area where nobody sat and was continually being crossed by people to and from the long altar. Behind the altar was an enormous concrete feature wall. The design was a simple shallow relief of large disk and other curves that echoed this theme. It could have represented the great stone over the tomb of Jesus. There was a sense in the design that it had rolled sideways a little and what might represent the tomb entrance was seen as a large gap across to another echo of the overall design.

"As we arrived we were recognized by someone who knew us from our past times at the church and as a result we did not have to go through the more careful and prudent greeting that a true visitor may have had to experience. We seemed to know what we had to do and proceeded to the rows of seating that all curved around and faced the long altar. The seating was constructed to higher at the back descending toward the flat central floor. We politely waited expectantly. Everything told us that this was the part of St. Judes Church which provided the weekly sacrament of communion. The other place where we had been, which was on the other side of the burned out old church, was obviously the teaching and preaching part of the service and at any time a person could decide to come to this more modern part. This was a church going through a metamorphous, in a state of reconstruction because of the fire and through being willing to experiment with what it is to be church.

"We sat and waited a while then suddenly a man with a huge mass of frizzed up blond hair brought the bread and the wine. He also shared that the verse given was Ezekiel chapter 2 verse 3. (Now after waking and recording this dream, I was more sure the numbers were 2:3 more so than 3:2, but both verses served to be very powerful pointers to what has been forming as a path that God has set before us for our future) He also informed us that this verse was given by those in authority there. We immediately preferred to read the reading but try as we might we could not find the verse. I resorted to using the index and found a page to Ezekiel. It was not the reading. We were not helped by using the prayer book which only has selected readings. The man waited patiently as we floundered along until we gave up the search. After all, we could check up the reading later in our own time.

"The man then gave us the Eucharist. The wine was filled to one third in a simple mass-produced kitchen glass, the kind with vertical concave arches around the outside. The bread was more unusual because it was in tablet form. It could have could have been a vitamin for all we knew. We partook in the communion and what happened after that has faded from conscious memory.

"This was a remarkable dream over other dreams that I have had in the past because I was given a Bible verse and that never happened before. More over, I was able to recall it confidently enough to be sure it was Ezekiel 2:3 or 3:2 (or possibly I was meant to take both equally as seriously). I did not think either chapter could offer anything enlightening. The numbers themselves seemed pretty uneventful. So I was a bit blown away when I checked the verses in the Bible the next morning and found a coherent message that seemed to confirm my existing path and encourage my continuing along it."

When St. Judes was damaged by a fire early Saturday 18 October 2014, Peter remembered this lost dream and began looking for it. Back then, we blogged a short reflection after it happened.