Where is the Lamb? Thoughts for Wednesday June 25, 2020

Where is the Lamb?

I woke up this morning with a memory of a dream. In the dream, I am trying to judge if a home is suitable for a child to live. I did things like that decades ago, when I was a Social Worker working with abused and neglected children. But when we look at dreams, usually the dream is not about the past but about what God is telling us about the present. I make the assumption that all elements of the dream are parts of me; I am the critical judge, and the defensive parent, and the confused child, and the dysfunctional home in which I live and move and have my being. God is the space between all our characters.

When I study scripture I put myself into each of the characters, as in the story from the Hebrew Testament of Abraham and Issac: “Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.”

Looking at a dream is the same way I look at scripture, both are tales sent to me, to dwell in my unconscious, which I work to bring into deeper awareness to help me find out more about my connection to God and the creation. Like Issac, I am trying to figure out what is going on in my life in this new retirement, with a suspicion I cannot name that the absent Lamb and I have a lot in common.

I did my morning walk and I reflected on the passage and the dream. I am making the assumption that the dream and the scripture are synchronistically related. They are rationally independent of each other, yet I give a meaning to them both showing up in my awareness at the same time.

If I were still working for a living, I would probably invite people to live into being the Issac who trusts but holds on to some anxiety that the one in whose Image he is created has a plan going on that Issac hasn't quiet figured out yet, but the two of them keep walking together.

Today's walk was good, I love walking alone in the morning because I know that I am really walking together. “Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit.” Invoked or not invoked, God is present.”

I just realized that today, the Feast of John the Baptizer, was the day I was ordained as a deacon in 1984 at St. Luke's Church in Boone, N.C. My theme in the lessons I chose was from Luke, when Jesus gets up from washing the disciples feet; “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

There is this thing about synchronicity; it is a God thing!