What dreams may come ~or~ I really need to watch those midnight snacks...

For the past two hours I lay awake in bed, haunted by a dream. In it I stood before a congregation in a church from my childhood long gone and spoke in a voice I never knew I had.

At the pulpit I spoke about the horrors of gun worship and an out of control military complex - where we spend more than the next five developed countries combined - and kill from afar; justifying the countless civilian deaths as justified collateral for the one target among them. I spoke of the disgrace of having the most citizens incarcerated and the greatest deficits between those who have, and those who do not.

I pleaded the case of Ben Franklin and his wise words about sacrificing freedoms for security when I talked of how we have let the TSA and the NSA walk all over and disgrace the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. And I asked them all, in this age of progress and enlightenment, how could we be proud of ourselves when the most we can say is we can destroy the world many times over from a single submarine?

The congregation - obviously as confused as I was about how and why I was up there speaking to them, sat stunned and murmured to themselves as I slipped away, across the quad, and to the gym to check in with security while the charity basketball game was just getting underway. I laughed with the chief as we saw one celebrity insist he enter the gym being bear hugged by his body guard. And, while I tried to discretely change into a kilt in the back corner, two older women started asking me about how to get to the music festival. So, instead of giving into my growing annoyance, I smiled and led them around the back hall, past a stage strewn with kilts and band equipment and off to the reception area.

As the dream started to fade I caught site of myself in a window, now having affixed my kilt. It wasn't any tartan I had ever seen, before. It wasn't even plaid. And as I saw how different I looked I started to think about that little gold card in my wallet.

Obviously this is a truncated version of how the dream actually went. And, I have to wonder, under what authority would I be to give such a speech, to begin with? The church, as it was, is long gone; however there is a new church built on it. It's one I don't recognize as well, these days. As much for my separation from its teaching as much as its physical form; though my blood line is mired in it.

Yes, ever inch of this is steeped in symbolism; I've been going over it for the past two hours. I imagine I'll continue going over it the rest of the day...