Pilgrimage

Bible study travel blog dream analysis

The last time I went to church in Denmark, after having bought the plane ticket to Australia, the priest spoke about traveling, and denounced tourism as superficial narcissistic gratification. And then, in what I think was a weird creative choice, as a fellow writer, he looked directly into my eyes and spoke about the history of pilgrimage, and said, “you are going on a physical journey that mirrors the spiritual journey in which we are all reaching for the kingdom of God, you are going on a literal pilgrimage, you, the reader, you are going on a literal medieval pilgrimage”. I thought it was a weird creative choice, but I found it strangely relateable.

A couple of days ago I slept in a tiny hut halfway up a mountain. Back when my life consisted of just going to work and going home, I spent a lot of time in dialogue with the almighty. In between podcasts and audiobooks and what have you, during a long lonely work day, you have a lot of time to throw in a quick prayer here and there. Now that I have a bunch of stuff going on and obligations to people, there has been less time gaps to fill. You're always kind of busy, if you are invested in the future. I've thought about the impulse to feel bad about that - as if you are neglecting God. But that is insane on the face of it, you only need to spell the words out loud to realise how preposterous that is.

Now, I usually pray when I'm lying in bed, because it's the main time I have where I'm not focused on some practical problem or people in my life. It's the only time where I am consistently giving myself permission to be alonr. Lying in a sleeping bag on the wooden floor of the little rangers hut, here is as I can best recreate it:

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory,

forever and ever.

Thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed on me. Things I do not deserve, but in your unfathomable mercy has been granted to me. Forgive me for my many continuous rebellions against you, despite all of these things, and despite my understanding, which makes my hubris and pride in every small act of defiance, compound.

I know that you reap where you do not sow, and I know that all the things you have given me are not mine, but that I am their warden, that I have been given responsibilities for many things. All good things are of You and belong to You, and I am to further and increase them, and I have no fear, for you have entrusted me with my share, and no more than I am able to bear - for you know my worth not I. All fearfulness and trepidation and uncertainty is rebellion and doubt.

Give me the strength and wisdom to help, protect and guide my wife in all things, and in the ways that I fail, I pray that you protect her, and give her strength and wisdom.

Give me the strength and wisdom to be all the things that people need me to be for them, so as to increase You in them and myself.

I pray, never let me forget what she has done for me, and take her for granted, and forget what You have done through her, and become rebellious and ungrateful.

I pray that you do not humble me, to remind me of these things, but that they are always present in my living life, as you are ever present, the living God, in my life.

She said to me, today, in a spirit of gratefulness and overflowing, in her remembering: you are always reminding me of all the things you have done for me, and though I forget, you continue to do them, and in remembering the past I feel ashamed at having forgotten, but I feel ever at ease that I will never forget, because you keep doing them.

I pray for three miracles. I pray that you bless my brother and his wife with a child, with health, and in so doing that they may recieve You all the more into their lives.

I pray that you soften my parents hearts, and let them recieve you more fully, with no pain or humiliation. I do not make myself judge, because you are the only judge, but as I see the world in my limited fallen capacity, I cannot see a path without pain - but you know, not I, and I pray for their health and happiness.

I pray that I never forget, and that I never take Your blessings for granted, and that I always remember that you reap where you do not sow, and fall into pride. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your unfathomable mercy.

Not my will but yours be done.

Then I fell asleep, in a cold spooky hut, creaking in the wind, and slept very poorly, preparing to get up at 4 am to hike the last bit up the mountain and watch the sunrise above the clouds, with half an eye open, because we were outside of civilisation, and it was a cold dark night, and any kind of stranger or mutant or monster or kangaroo or wild horse might pass by through the night, and I would have to defend us.

In the first part of my dream, I am verbally humiliating my dad. I am ridiculing him and belittling him and driving the knife in where I know it will hurt the most. I am humiliating him and bullying him out of my own pure animal resentment and self gratification. I am taking revenge on him, and it hurts him, and I am reveling in it. I am humiliating him the same way he did to his dad, my grandfather. I am making petty snide resentful comments and judgements and rubbing his nose in his failures, and saying, "how dare you", and "look at you now, you are weak and I am strong". I am punishing him for the way he treats his father and his brother, and I am cruel. It's ecstatic, like a drug. It is not a happy feeling, but it is emptying myself out, it is relieving of a pent up internal pain and frustration. It does not soothe or bring peace or even satisfaction, but it is ecstatic, and it gives the feeling of emptying myself. I make my dad cry.

In the dream I never dropped out of university. I am respected and renowned and successful. I have achieved a high status from proving how smart I am, and people revere me. I am cold and lonely and full of hatred. My peers and fellow professors are afraid of me, because I can hurt them personally, intimately, in their private minds, and professionally, externally, materially in the world. I decree who succeeds and fails, and I hold court, where students and peers grovel for my affection. I hate them and I take pleasure in withholding what they desire. I am respected and revered and beloved, and all that I feel for anyone and anything is hate.

In the dream I am still in a relationship with my first girlfriend from high school, and I hate her. She has a kind of power over me, somehow. I can't escape her, for dream logic quicksand reasons. She is insurmountable, cannot be overcome, a force of nature. Incomprehensible and indifferent to me. Other women throw themselves at me. I am a prestigious dark academic. And I hate them too, even moreso, for doing so. A woman makes advances towards me and I threaten her. I intimidate her and make her feel small. I want to punish her. I want to hurt her, make her feel ashamed and miserable, for desiring me, for being attracted to me.

I am all powerful, a king, and there are no threats to my authority. I am rich and famous, and not just envied, but genuinely beloved, by all. I have all worldly things, riches and fame and glory, and security, with not even the possibility of threat to any of it. I have ultimate authority and power. And all I feel is hatred. I hate my father. I hate my friends, my peers, my students, my children, my dream-girlfriend, all women. I feel nothing but a totally unbounded, cold, emptiness. I hate so profoundly, and I only desire to hurt and punish and destroy. To let it flow through me and empty me out, so that I am nothing, and feel nothing, and I am only violence, biting, killing. Hurting.

Lower animal consciousness. The entire universe is a zero sum competition. I am always attacking. All I feel is Hatred. And underneath the hatred - fear. They are all human, and I am an animal, instinct, and I have somehow conquered them all, and I am torturing them, humiliating them, bleeding them. Because I hate them. And I am afraid, and I am alone. And in this world, nothing grows, there is only a final competition over the ever diminishing amount of blood.

Then I woke up, because she was cuddling me for warmth. Then I fell back asleep. Then we woke up and packed our bags, and went outside, and the fog had lifted, and you could see the stars. Then we climbed a mountain, and watched the sunrise above the clouds. It was very windy.