It is 5:00 in the morning. The house is quiet and cold on this winter morning and you hear the rain outside falling on the pavement and the trees.
You have been startled awake by a vivid and very strange dream. You toss in your bed for a bit, but sleep eludes you and the dream haunts you. Perhaps by going over it in your mind, you’ll be able to go back to sleep.
In the dream it is night and you are in a strange and frightening place. It is dark and there are crowds of people being herded around in a rude encampment of some sort. They are frightened and hungry and poor and completely powerless. In the crowd there are military figures, or at least ones who seem to wield the authority around here. You could be almost anywhere that desperate and terrified people gather, or are gathered by the powers of the world. You could be in Palestinian camps, or the camps in Yemen, or on our southern border.
You look around for a place to hide. You are not even sure what the danger is, but you know somehow that your very life is in danger. In the darkness, you scuttle around the rude huts and tents trying to avoid the gaze of others. There seems to be no safety in this place and you are terrified.
At last you see a small hut set apart from the others that looks deserted. There is a warped wooden door that will only shut partway, but things seem to be quiet so you slowly open the door as little as possible to squeeze in. As you enter, you quickly realize that there are others here but at the same time you hear footsteps outside so you quickly move to a dark corner where you hope you will not be discovered. Your heart is pounding so loudly that you are afraid it will give you away.
As you heart calms down and your breathing slows you become aware of the others in the hut. You hear the crying of an infant and realize that there is a couple in this small hut and the woman must have recently given birth. They are speaking quietly to each other and it is clear to you that they are just as frightened as you are. You are afraid that the infant will cry and alert the authorities but there is literally nowhere else to go.
In your fear and exhaustion, you fall into a fitful and nightmare ridden sleep.
A while later (is it only a few moments or is it a lifetime?) there are sounds of motors outside and a large vehicle (or maybe more) stop just outside the hut. Inside the hut, you all collectively hold your breath hoping that whoever they are they won’t find you.
Your hopes are dashed as the door is pulled open and three large hooded figures enter and stop before the couple and their child. You cringe back into your corner trying desperately to disappear. You have never been this frightened in your life and even the cockroaches and rats in this rude hut offer no further fear.
At first there is utter silence as you and the small family cringe back against your respective corners. And then, most surprisingly, the figures kneel down in front of the child and the child’s parents. From your corner you can’t hear what is being said, but you see the young couple begin to relax and then even to smile as the three strangers offer them gifts of some sort.
Your fear begins to turn to curiosity. You dare to creep a little closer. What could possibly be going on? All you can tell is that there is some sort of transformation taking place, and what had been fear, darkness and squalor now seems transformed to peace, beauty and light. The young parents smile on their infant as the child sleeps peacefully.
As the figures get up quietly to take their leave, your curiosity wins out over your fear and you follow them out of the hut. Your heart is pounding again and you would definitely be quaking in your boots if you had any, but you gather the last of your courage and pull on the coat of one of the figures. They turn around to look at you. You don’t know what you expected, but it certainly wasn’t the beautiful and caring expressions of kindness and concern on their faces. Then your surprise is multiplied as the kneel before you!
And then they give you gifts. It’s so hard to describe (as dream images often are). The gifts are things—not exactly tangible objects, but somehow ever so much more real than that. It’s more like they offer you “knowings” or some sort of deep wisdom about your life and the world.
The first looks at you with such deep love and compassion that you begin to feel a deep and abiding sense of self-worth, as though you are more precious than the finest gold. You feel for the first time the true dignity of being human and sense the expansion of being yourself.
The second offers only what you can describe as the fragrance of infinity—far off stars and galaxies mixed inexplicably with butterfly wings and new roses. You begin to feel your own divine nature beneath all the layers of fear, shame, and self-flagellation.
The third, most surprisingly offers you the darkness of eternity where life and death meet, and where they are not the opposite of each other. You know death now as a friend and as a natural part of life that gives you the gift of passionate presence with all that is and makes you aware of the preciousness of each and every moment.
As they leave and the sound of their Harleys fade in the darkness, their hoods are blown off and you see gleams of gold and gems on their helmets as if they are royalty of some deeper realm.
Then, in the silence and peace that their visit has left, you look around at the desolate encampment. You know that soon the camp will awaken and the same fear, hunger, and longing for peace will arise again, but what had seemed so bleak and hopeless just a while ago now seemed to glow as from a light within—all that had appeared so despairing and miserable now begins to look somehow beautiful, as if, even in the midst of such desperation there is hope after all.
You look to the sky and see the morning star in the gathering dawn and wonder for a moment if the sky is singing, so alive and vibrant it looks. You know that you are changed forever and can be truly present to whatever darkness and suffering you encounter in yourself and in others.
And you wake up.
As you awaken you somehow know that this is the way life is at its deepest level—beautiful in the face of ugliness, peaceful in the face of violence and aggression, and love in the face of hatred and division when we can fully enter in to its sacredness.
Sleep continues to elude you so you quietly slip out of bed and look outside. You are not surprised to see that the world outside your window has come alive like the rude encampment had. It is glowing as though from a light within—even the raindrops dropping on pavement and the slick trunks of the rain-soaked trees. As the morning star rises, you feel that you can hear again the sound of the sky singing with the joy of creation and life itself.
Then you realize that this is not only your own personal dream, but the dream of all of humankind—to live without fear, knowing our own worth, our own divinity, and offering it to others. You know that that infant in the hut lived and died in such a way as to communicate to the world this inner light and life. And you know that you must too. Not the way that he did, but in the way that only you can, and you vow to live your life in this way—meeting the other as sacred, opening to the infinite in each encounter, and living each moment in complete presence as a portal to eternity.
