Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
To keep a Dream Journal was the one requirement of an 'easy pass' course at my college, until the lecturer added a preface to the list. You missed so much if you only took the easy way out. The teacher himself was a poet, and incantatory only begins to describe the recitations of his own poetry that occasionally broke through the drowsy fog of my inattention. The lectures were all recorded, videotaped and transcribed, and published by Black Sparrow Press as "Birth of a Poet" (1982). Yes, these were the lectures of William Everson, beat poet and correspondent of Thomas Merton, known in religion as Brother Antoninus. He believed in dreams' power to speak to us: he was a Jungian, and recommended reading "Three Archetypes" to inform our understanding of ourselves. There was more to the class and to him than I grasped but I do know now that he sought to invite us into our dreams, and into our desires they revealed, and into our own nature in its depths of unconscious longing and fulfillment.
There have been great dreams. And nightmares. Did you think I would begin with Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking at the Washington Monument in 1963? Or perhaps a 'nightmare' portrait of Romance? But Joseph's dream was different, even unlike the dream of Joseph's interpretation in the land of Egypt, or Jacob's at the bank of the Jordan. It was monumental and simple.
Do not put away this woman. Marry her. Raise her son. For in him and in her is the hope of ages. And you have a job to do, a role to play, that is essential to its fulfillment.
And he did.
***
In his telling, his gospel, Matthew tells of the birth of Christ with five significant dreams, and four significant dreamers. The first dreamer, and four of the dreams, belong to Joseph. (The other dream, and dreamers, come with the arrival of magi from the East. There will be another dream, and dreamer, in Matthew's Passion.)
Joseph, in his dreams, takes place toward the end of the long line of prophets, prophets including Noah, Moses, Elijah, and others. The warning dreams - flee, go back, turn aside - could be those of a troubled man tossing and turning, deciding what to do - and finding the answer in emerging consciousness. The first dream, however, is this and more: for Joseph sees beyond the moment to its deeper meaning.
That same professor of mine used to distinguish between what is happening - like little waves on the surface of a lake - and what is really going on - in those deep currents and upwellings of great significance that breach the surface of time in critical moments.
This, Joseph perceived, was one of those moments. This was not just an ordinary occurrence, the unexpected pregnancy of a young woman. If it had been, his initial plan of 'putting her away quietly' - so she could bear her child in rural obscurity - would have been the familiar and highly recommended route. But there was more going on than what just appeared to be happening on the surface. This was the beginning, if Joseph was as docile to the spirit's leading as Mary had been, of the redemption of time.
It meant the fulfillment of the promise of ages, that Zechariah had greeted in the birth of his son John, and that Anna and Simeon would embrace at the dedication of our Lord in the Temple; that the wise men from the East came and sought, and found, in a cradle.
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Advent/AAdv4_RCL.html
http://edgeofenclosure.org/advent4a.html
https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources#resources
Donald Nicholl, Holiness in World Religions. Course at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 1979.
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