Lithuanian Dream

I had the strangest yet most vivid dream last night.

I took a group of people to Lithuania, I have been to Lithuania before and had the opportunity to get out and about and see quite a bit of it, so this is how I knew we were in Lithuania.

We travelled in a bus off the beaten track to place where there were many people performing circus acts in little booths beside the road, we alighted from the bus and walked through an abandoned shopping mall to what only can be described as some form of church building, it was modern and white but not particularly impressive or busy.

I decided to go to the toilet and whilst going to the toilet I got in a complete mess, I don't know how it happened but I got covered in my own excrement and I didn't have a change of clothes. Obviously this wasn't the most pleasant dream I have ever had.

Whilst I was in the toilet trying to work out what to do with myself, how on earth I was going to clean up this foul stinking mess that had covered my t-shirt etc...there was knock on the door.

It was the team they said "we need to get out on the street and talk to people" for some reason this further irritated me as I knew that none of us could speak Lithuanian.

There I was locked in a toilet, stinking and messy with a group of people outside who wanted me to lead them on an adventure in talking to people who wouldn't understand us. I wouldn't come out of the toilet, I just sat there locked away stressing about everything.

Then I woke up. It was so vivid I had to check to see that I hadn't messed myself in my sleep!!!!

Here's what I think. We all live in a world that is familiar but unfamiliar a large part of our own lives is spent watching other peoples lives (the power of celebrity) there is a call for us to travel together off the beaten track, the church has become somewhat hidden away behind the empty veil of it's consumeristic nature, it looks okay but it's not particularly busy or impressive.

We lock ourselves away at times covered in our own mess, we become deeply agitated about getting ourselves clean, it stresses us so much that we can't leave the private place to face the world until we are clean. Of course all the time we are trying to get clean there are voices encouraging us to come and engage with the world, this creates tension! We know we should get out there but we are concerned about how we look. The final stress is that the church and christians can't speak the language we don't know how to communicate, we are worried that people will think we are strange and talking in a language that is irrelevant and difficult to understand! So we stay locked in the closet, we know that we need to come out but are to stressed to face a world that we think is not going to understand us!