Upper rooms

[Charys]

This one was quite vivid and detailed. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days and I get most of it, but not all.

My husband and I came home from a trip to a big house. We didn't buy this house, but it was ours in the sense that it had been given to us to use indefinitely. It had many large rooms. I was standing in the hallway on the upper level.

Peter, (a guy who leads worship at our church) phoned and asked if they could come over and use our house for a prayer meeting. He said it was a good place because we already had so many musical instruments there. He said Brooke (a girl from our Sunday School class who is really waking up spiritually) wanted to meet at a quarter to seven, but he didn't think it would happen that early. Maybe at seven.

We were tired and had decided to stay home, but we discussed it and decided the house was clean, so sure they could come. I saw that the time was already 7 o'clock. As I answered him people started coming into to the house. I did not recognize most of them. A lot of them were carrying guitars.

I directed them down the hall to the big room at the end and went to a little kitchen nearby to try to find some refreshments. Another guy named Jesse (on a different worship team that I have played piano for. He also heads a parachurch youth outreach mission) came and asked if I meant them to go to that room because it was too small. I asked "How many are there, anyway?" because I knew that room was plenty big enough for a large group. I followed him.

There was a little room off to the left that looked like a nursery or toddler's playroom and everyone was crowded in there. He and I tried to get their attention to persuade them to move to the bigger room, but they were having a good time and didn't want to leave, even though people were shoved right up against a glass wall on the hallway side and guitars were poking people in their ears.

I went down to the big room myself. It was very bright and full of light with windows high up on the wall. There was a lovely piano and other instruments in there. I went to put some chairs out. They were those old-fashioned stacking wooden chairs like we had in my childhood church -but the backs of them were thin and flimsy like paper. They folded when I tried to grab them. There were three people seated at a long table who beckoned me to leave the chairs and join them. One was Peter, one was a man I didn't recognize (because I never saw his face) and one was a woman.

The woman asked me why I needed a tree. A tree? I wasn't aware I had a tree right behind me and over me. I explained to her that I loved trees, and that they represented protection, shelter and shade to me. She asked something like, "Do you really need shade in this room?" I felt she did not approve of my tree, but I said nothing. (I was trying to figure out what this conversation meant even in the dream. Could it be about "in the light as he is in the light?).

We sat quietly for a while, then they decided it was time to leave. I thought, "What? No list? I thought this was a prayer meeting. But, we haven't even prayed yet."

I went out into the hallway and met my husband. He was taking some young people to another big room which turned out to be a gym or workout/exercise room. I groaned. I whined that I hate exercise. (which in real life I do. I'd rather muck out a barn or tote barges or something useful rather than expend energy -or money- on an exercise bike or treadmill that goes nowhere)

I wanted to return to the prayer room, but as I rounded the corner I saw some servants in white (2 or 3?) carrying a very pale weak naked sickly old man in an old-fashioned bathtub like the kind you see dragged out and filled in old western movies. The tub was black. I think they had been hiding him in a stairwell. He was giving them instructions like he was an old mafia boss or something. He told them to take him into the prayer room and they headed down the hall. I tiptoed out of there because I didn't want to deal with the situation.

end of dream.

Context: Just before the dream (which I had during a sort nap) I was reading something someone had written about contemplative prayer. They quoted Mother Theresa who said something like she just listened in her prayer time. When someone asked her what the Lord said to her she said, "He just listens too, and if I have to explain that to you, you won't understand." (not an exact quote) I was asking the Lord what that meant, because I don't understand.