A Reflection for IV Lent All
Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC
March 15, 2015 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Snake
in My Path
 |
| William Blake's drawing of " Moses Erecting the Brazen Serpent" |
The reason I was not with you last Sunday was that Pat and I were
graduating from the Dream Group Leader Program and finishing up the classes we
were taking. I believe in gathering in groups to be helpers in listening to our
dreams and myths. I had already handed in my paper, An Experiment in
Preaching Using Dream Work, my accounting of last year when I spent 23
sermons using the dream work method of looking at the mythic stories of the Hebrew
Bible. As you remember, I told you many times that I consider Myths to be
public dreams which a community remembers to give a deeper meaning in their
community life and understanding, just as I consider dreams to be private myths
which give the individual a deeper connection to their spiritual life.
If we were literalists in telling stories from the Bible, our only
viewpoint would be that these are historical stories in which things are what
they are and have only one meaning - a stone is a stone and a snake is a
snake. However, we are not literalists and if we see this myth/dream as a
reflection upon a mystical event, a dream or myth, where each element of the
dream/myth has multiple meanings, then each time the story is told another
meaning can be seen which may have not yet been seen earlier. This is what Jesus does when he revisits the
public dreams/myths of his people as he does in today’s Gospel lesson.
Historians write histories, Prophets and Priests listen to God and revisit the
mythic structure. The question is not “Did this happen?”, but “what does
this story mean to you right here and right now?”
Today’s first lesson from the Hebrew Testament of Numbers has
mythic properties, letting us know we are not in Kansas anymore, and it comes
across as a dream. This public dream that the Hebrew people remembered and
passed on to their children was about finding ourselves in a situation where we
are in a mess and do not know what we are to do or where to go, and a symbol of
that situation in life is the wilderness. There are deaths in this dream and
usually deaths in a dream are about changes, the old life is dying so a new
life is being healed. When our life is a mess, the first step to for us to
change is to admit that WE have a problem and WE have to change; if it is
someone else’s problem, they will have to change. Consider the alcoholic
or drug addict - as long as she/he can convince others that they have no
problem or that it is someone else’s fault, then they can deny that it is their
problem and push it out of consciousness. She/he does not have to change. Also
we tend to project the denied parts of ourselves on to others, saying things
like, “I don’t have a problem, but Joe over there, he really does have a problem. If he could just
control his nagging, I would be all right!” Humans have a hard time making
changes, and so we need to admit that our old ways are destructive to us and come
to grips with ourselves and the help we will need.
One of the final lectures in our training last week was on “Snake
Dreams”, and we were instructed ahead of time to bring in a snake dream - a
dream in which snakes are present. I had not had one, but I took the Hebrew
Testament lesson for this Sunday about Moses and the serpents in the
Wilderness. The Hebrew people told this myth many times over the years, and
Jesus must have been told this story many times for he uses it to explain a
deeper meaning in his life and, by extension, in the lives of those who would
follow him. Jesus was not interested in founding a new religion, but he seemed
to be interested in getting his people back to a deeper meaning in their
religious and daily life with God.
The instructor went through the multitude of meanings that the
snake symbol has had throughout history, e.g. evil, wisdom, cleverness, new
life (with the shedding of skin), danger, hidden, all seeing (the snakes eyes
never close), power (a little bit of poison will defeat an enemy much larger
than the snake itself), healing, eternity, fertility, guardians of the sacred,
the remnants of the umbilical cards which bind us to Mother Earth, and so many
others possibilities. Our instructor asked us to revisit our snake
dreams, so I looked at this snake myth and I encountered it again by my making
this myth/dream from Numbers my dream. I invite you to make this myth/dream
your dream and encounter it as Your Dream sent from God for you to visit for your
life here and now. Dreams/myths are God’s way of helping us bring issues to
consciousness where we can deal with them. What does your wilderness look like
today? What are the things you need to change? Since everything in the dream is
part of ourselves, what symbol gives us the most energy?
If I claim this dream as mine, then in my dream I am walking in my
life now in a wilderness and I am complaining and murmuring, surrounded by other
complainers. We moan and mutter about not getting the things we want and what
we get is not enough.
Therefore, in my dream, I mutter about not having enough, not food
like they do in the Numbers dream/myth, but money. By canonical decree, I will
be made to retire in less than four years, and I am fearfully muttering in my
heart that I will not have enough money to live the life of excess I crave. I
am muttering that I have made the wrong choices in the past as I was on this
journey on this path. If I had worked in a different field, or if I had only
taken that other option…. If - If - If.
I am dragging my past along in my wilderness, and I want jump into a magical
future as a way to avoid dealing with the present.
In my muttering I am aware that I have envy for the things others
seem to have. Why are all sorts of blessings seemingly wasted on those people when I am so sure I am more
deserving? It is my pride, the mother of all sins, and now it shows up in the
violation of the 10th commandment as I am coveting and moving into alienation
from them and from God. My feelings of anxiety come to dominate my thoughts and,
as I dread the future, I am not able to fully engage the present. As the Buddha
advised; “The secret for health for both mind and body is not to mourn the
past, worry about the future, anticipate troubles, but to live in the present
moment wisely and earnestly.” Or, as Jesus prayed- “Today give us the bread we
need for this day.”
Since all of the elements of the dream are different parts of me,
one of the tasks of dream work is to encounter the elements that have the most
energy, which in this case is the snake, and have a conversation with it, asking
it to tell me what it is doing in my dream.
This is the conversation I have with the snake in the path.
Tom: What the heck are you
doing in my life?
Snake: Ssssay sssailor, are
you new in town?
Tom: Don’t get cute with me.
(pause) I’m sorry, if every dream is sent by the Divine Dream Maker for health
and healing, I need to respect you, you are part of me. But what is behind the
way you greeted me?
Tom: Of course I am separated
from you because if you bite me, I will die.
Snake: Remember that in a dream, to die is to change. Don’t you know you need to die each day to the world in
which you live now? You are surrounded by a society of excess and consumption, surrounded
on all sides by commercials telling you to buy more and more stuff. You are
surrounded by dread-filled commercials which warn you to put your faith in what
you own and what you do. You need to die to having a God you hold in your hand
or store in your garage as a symbol of worth. You need to be dead to the past
so you don’t have to live there anymore. Die to the future so you can live in
the uncontaminated present. Look at yourself - you have become like me,
slithering around instead of walking upright.
Look at me and claim that part of you so you don’t have to
project it on to someone else. For instance, you know how annoyed you are by
this one person of whom I don’t really need to remind you?
Tom: You mean?
Snake: Exactly that one.
Tom: Yeah but who can blame
me? She is so self-centered.
Snake: I rest my case. What are you doing
now? You are so self-absorbed that you
cannot give thanks for what you have. You
only complain about what you do not have.
Tom: Like what do I really
have that I can be thankful for?
Snake: You have a home, an income, medical
insurance, and a pension, all of them given to you by the church - that same
church that you brag you would work for even if they didn’t pay you. Would you?
If so, act like it and don’t lie to others, to God and especially to yourself.
Claim the coveting and the fear you have and see them as symbols of the greed
and fear that destroy people. Like perhaps in the Gospel lesson for today where
greed and fear motivated the rulers of this world to crucify Jesus on a cross
raised high. Look on that cross and see your own greed, your own fear, and when
you are able to claim that you help erect the cross on which you have hung
yourself, then you are on the way to wholeness. You can begin to die to the old
life and rise to a new life. It is not going to be your own power that does
that. Jesus did not use his own power to stop the crucifixion by destroying his
enemies or denying it; he entered into it so we might see that the only way to
begin a new life is to die to the old one. Join with me, SSSnuggle up with me
and letsss make a new life together.
Snake In My Path (Poem)
SSSay SSSSailor, are you new in town?
Perhapsss you are interested in a truth,
you have not been able to really own
or claim for healing to get out of booth
in which you have encasssed for life
away from small ssslitherss of healing
from your dancesss of death now rife
with hazzzzards but now ssso appealing.
Come - sssleep with me and find anew
the truth from which you ssso much hide.
SSSnuggle with me my own little Babu
and for this night, I will be your bride.
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