I DREAMED OF GOD AND FREE WILL

NOW:

Last night, I dreamed of God. I did not realize it was a dream about God until I woke up, but once I came to full consciousness that fact became crystal clear.

I dreamed I was helping a young friend dress. This young lady was about eight years old but very thin and frail. She looked six, but I remember thinking she was a couple of years older than she looked. She could smile and she nodded or shook her head to communicate, but her muscles did not work well and she needed a lot of physical assistance. I was helping her dress and I found a sweater that I had (I thought in my dream) sewed together up the front for her when she was smaller. I had sewn it so it stayed closed. She tended to freeze easily, I thought, and the buttons had not worked very well. But when I pulled the sweater out, I could tell that the child had grown and the sweater, though it might fit her if it were put on as sweaters normally are, would no longer pull over her head without possibly hurting her face. She might even have to wear the garment unbuttoned now.

As I worked to remove the stitches, I asked the child if she remembered when I sewed it together. She smiled and nodded that she did. I smiled back at her, removed the black thread, and held her up while trying to get her largely unresponsive arms (she tried to help) into the sweater. As I did this, I was so at peace, so happy to help her.

When I awoke, I realized that in "real life" when I help others there is a constant dialog of thoughts and ideas washing through my brain. They go something like this:

"Will this person allow me to help them?"
"Will this person help me help them?"
"Will this person appreciate my help?"
"Will this person do good with the opportunity my help provides?"
"Will this person go forth and be a "good" person or will they be a "bad" person?"
"Am I abetting evil when I help them?"
"Am I abetting Goodness when I help them?"
"Can my help influence them toward Goodness?"
"Is this a waste of my time?"
"Is there someone else I could and should be helping that will be more likely to contribute to Goodness?"
"Is this person worthy of my help?"

My mind is full, and loud, and sometimes should be quieted if not entirely ignored.

I realized on waking that God sends us forth with Free Will. Perhaps He/She knows exactly what we will do with that Free Will, but I suspect that the ones that are going forth to do evil get just as much milk from their mother's breasts as the ones going forth to attempt to do good. Opportunities abound for most of us. God Loves us. God sets us on our way and what we do along that way is entirely up to us.

In looking back into the dream, I felt that it was my duty, and my joy, to help this child. I knew that what she did was between her and God, and what I did was between God and me. This dream me believed that what God wanted of me was complete love and assistance for my fellow man - ALL my fellow man! This other me felt that I could not "play God" by trying to read the future, that it was completely wicked to decide whom to be good to, that it was my duty to be good and helpful to everyone.

When I awoke, I wondered if I'd dreamed of BEING God, but no. Though my heart was guileless and my mind was free from wicked thoughts, I had no idea what the child would do with her potential. I did not know and I did not care to think about it. I only cared to do my duty (to the God I was not) by helping my fellow man.

I guess I dreamed of being a Friend (a Quaker.) I suppose I should not be too surprised by that, since I have long said my soul is a Friend soul.

This dream makes me realize that living inside me are two natures. The redneck in me wants to cling to the ways it knows. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I want to make threats for anyone that may ever hurt my children, my grandchildren, my family at large. I want to follow through with those threats with great abandon and possibly joy if anyone ever tests them. My Scottish and Native American blood reminds me that my passion to protect comes from nature and therefore God, so it must exist for a very good reason. I suspect that I could "off someone," snuff out their very life, in defense of my family and not lose a wink of sleep over it. But the Friend in me, my civilized nature, the part of me that longs to be more like God, struggles to remember that MY children are actually GOD'S children, and that "vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," and that what happens on this Earth is a blink inside a wink inside the scope of Eternity. I will continue to work on sewing the idea of peace into my heart, my brain, my soul. I will hope I am never tested in this, for I do not know which nature would show it's face. And I certainly will work on doing good with Abandon, doing good with no thought of it as an investment in Goodness, for what do I, a mere mortal, even know of that blessed state?