Dream Interpretation: A Nightmare About the Church

I had a nightmare last night. I basically always have either nightmares or, in recent years, lucid dreams. To me dreams are important. I see them as messages, either from the subconscious or somewhere else, a higher power. I suppose it depends on the dream, as to where I think it originated. This one, I see as a message from my subconscious, or a way of processing feelings. Angry feelings, hurt feelings. I'll give you the dream and my interpretation of it, but I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on the meaning of it all. Dream interpretation is of great interest to me. I even see my fiction writing as conscious dreaming, and I find meaning in my work quite often that I hadn't known was there.

So here's the dream:

I was an investigative reporter for a TV station, and I was doing a story on preachers abusing animals. It started with one preacher, at home, who I was visiting as a friend, not as a reporter. It was Christmas morning. His wife gave him a puppy for Christmas, wrapped in a box. The preacher unwrapped the present, opened the box, and pulled out the puppy (which was female - any detail could have significance) with sheer delight. His wife got on the phone to a friend, and was talking animatedly about what a wonderful Christmas they were having, when to her shock and dismay, her husband proceeded to "lovingly" rape the puppy. The preacher's wife tried to get him to stop, but she didn't end her phone conversation, nor did she let on to the person on the other end that anything was less than wonderful, as her husband continued his violation of the innocent puppy.

I was so upset! I left, because I'd just been there as a friend, and now I was fairly certain I couldn't be friends with this guy anymore. His wife couldn't stop him, I couldn't stop him, and the puppy was raped and nothing could be done about it. Then I got a call from my boss at the TV station, and that's when I learned this was an epidemic, and I was to do a story on preachers raping animals. I didn't want to do the story; I wanted to run from it, but it was my job, so I went with my camera man to a park that was reportedly where preachers gathered to do their unspeakable crimes.

It looked like a zoo, with artificial animal environments, and all manner of animals. And there were lots of preachers there, in the buff, doing their thing with the animals. And, like the preacher from the first part of the dream, they were all profoundly fat, had thick mustaches, and puffed up, slicked back hair. The hair was a variety of colors, depending on the preachers, black, silver, red, blonde, brown, but they were otherwise identical. Now that I think of it, they all looked sort of like Ron Jeremy. Yeesh. It was SO disgusting that I had to struggle not to vomit, but I mustered my strength and did the reporting. When my camera man and I got to the pool, where two preachers were trying to have their way with a visibly excited male walrus, however, I almost did lose my lunch. It was all I could do to wrap up the story and sign off, as the police arrived and started dragging the preachers away in handcuffs and white towels.

And then I woke up, and I still felt like throwing up for several minutes. It was really disturbing!

My interpretation, so far:

I am angry at the Church. I am disillusioned. I've been struggling with this for some time now, as a youth worker in the Church. I see so much hypocrisy, especially working at the conference level, where I see the politics of the larger machine at its best and worst on a scale of hundreds of churches. It seems like everyone has forgotten what we're doing here. And I say that very generally. I know several sincere and faithful clergy members and other church folks who for me represent the genuine article in Christianity. Unfortunately, they are not the ones with the most power, they are the ones who get marginalized by the greed of the machine that the Church has in many ways become.

Here are some more specific things: I see churches seeking money, money, and more money. Money for the sake of money. They cut youth and children's programs, or at the very least short change them, because young people don't tithe. They do nothing for the college age group. They even discourage anything to be done for this age group when someone tries on a volunteer basis...because it doesn't bring money into the church. "The church is a business," they say, "and the senior pastor is the CEO." This is the most oft repeated cop out of my experience. Frankly, trying to run the Church like a business is killing it. Yes, money keeps the lights on and the salaries paid, but to what end, if all the church is doing is seeking new ways to bring in money? I fully believe that if a church actually behaves like the body of Christ, as it's supposed to, the money will be there. I say if we put our faith in God, rather than in money, we'll make it. We'll have what we need to do our work, our mission, our ministry. Instead, I feel like the Church is raping the masses so that a select group of people can hold onto their illusions of power and their bloated salaries. It's not at all unlike what is happening with the United States Congress even as I write this. Sometimes, ironically, I feel like my primary job as a Christian youth leader is to protect the youth from the Church and foster their relationships with God and encourage their spirituality in spite of the Church.

And this isn't just a local Church thing, this isn't just one denomination, this is across the board. There are lots of good people in almost every Church, lots of good clergy that I know personally, but the money-and-numbers trend that Churches across the board seem to be following is the same. I say, if it comes down to cutting a ministry or mission, or losing the building, lose the building! It's the 21st century; we don't need a building in order to do God's work. If you look at Jesus for inspiration, you'll see they didn't even need a church building in the first century. Our priorities are all jacked up.

I found myself the other day having a conversation with someone about this, and I realized it seems, in contrast to the protestants, the Roman Catholics aren't putting money first. Their people in power just enable child rapists and wage war on women. Again, every Catholic that I know personally is a good person with genuinely Christian ethics; I am speaking in general of the powers that be, but come on; what is wrong with the Church in general? How can things have degenerated to such an insane degree?

So that anger, that outrage, I'm pretty darn sure, is where the dream originated. And I could go on about the hypocrisies I see. I haven't even touched on ilegal, money-saving business practices, racism, ageism, sexism, and homophobia, but for now I want to focus on the details of the dream.

The mustaches - I think the mustaches represented hiding their true faces. The Church pretends to be benign and all about the people and connecting them with God, but behind the proverbial "mustaches" they are becoming just another giant, powerful organization trying to take the people for all their worth. "Rapists of the innocent."

Fat - All the preachers were fat, and I think this is because I think so many preachers, and the Church itself, are bloated, glutting themselves on power and money.

Male - All the preachers were male. I think this is because of the whole "rape" theme. I personally don't automatically think of rapists as female, probably because I rarely hear of females raping people. Not that it doesn't happen.

Ron Jeremy - is gross. I think the way some Churches abuse and take advantage of faith and innocence is equally gross. Both make me want to throw up.

Animals - are innocent, like people who put their faith blindly in the Church as Christ's representative.

The preacher's wife - was ignoring the problem, but she was fully aware of it and trying not to let on to the person on the other end of the phone. Isn't this just like us? Are Christians not all, on some level, married to, or in partnership with, the Church? Do not all of us who are deeply involved with the Church see the hypocrisy? Do we not all try to get on with business as usual, as though nothing is wrong? I think we do. I think it's the easy answer. And I think it's the wrong answer.

So, to wrap this blog up, I want to say again that I know so many good Christians, so many good clergy people, in every denomination and in every Church that I have ever been involved with. Good missions and excellent ministries are all around us. But that's not what I was dreaming about. My subconscious isn't having trouble coping with the good parts of the Church.

I feel that it is our duty, those of us who want better from the Church, to be the change, to stand up to the bullies and thugs who would have us worship money and their power. Don't let them win, and the Church will again be the Church: an organization whose business is the feeding of God's flock, the nurturing of faith and human relationships.

Let us not forget: Jesus was ultimately betrayed by Judas, and Judas was the keeper of the common purse. He traded Jesus' ministry for thirty pieces of silver. We mustn't allow our leaders in the Church to do the same.