Day 264- You Don’t Take It With You

Very strange. For the last two nights I’ve had recurring dreams from my childhood that I haven’t had in a very long time, but with twists. First I dreamt I was flying in a dream. The twist was I wasn’t the only one who could fly. After watching me, a few people joined in.

Then last night I had this dream where I was out with my brother. We were in Miami I think, visiting. We were going out to a nightclub and he was driving. Scene shift and we’re walking in this giant mall kind of space going down a giant escalator of sorts. It was several stories going down, down, down. As I looked down I noticed some loose change lying on the ground. It’s always nice to find money, so I picked it up. It was just quarters and dimes and nickels. But, then there was more and more and more. Half dollars and stacks of silver dollars. Somehow in my dream world I was able to pick up and carry all of this money that was starting to add up to a very significant amount. “Who dropped this?” I wondered, but I continued to pick it up even as the people all around me ignored it. “Fine.” I thought “More for me.” Then, I glanced to the bottom of the escalator and I saw a guy getting off. There were a couple of cops standing there and he put his hands in the air as he walked past them. It suddenly occurred to me the money had been stolen and left there because the guy(s) who stole it knew the cops ahead had been alerted. If I was found with this money, they’d think I had taken it. So, I threw the money to the ground before they could see me. As I walked past them, I could feel them looking at me with suspicion, but I was good because I had gotten rid of the money. As I walked past them with a sigh of relief, I woke up.

There were a couple of things about this dream that were the same as my childhood dream and some that were different. When I was a kid I would often dream of finding myself in a place where the ground was just covered with coins. I would grab as many as I could hold. Often times I would realize I was in a dream and try to stay asleep because I knew I couldn’t take the money with me into the waking world (I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with it there). Other times I would wake up and be disappointed to find myself in my bed without the money. The twist in this dream is it wasn’t so much about leaving the money behind. When I woke up I felt a sense of relief that I hadn’t been arrested by the police. I was thinking “That was a close call.” Then I realized it didn’t matter. That wasn’t real. Even if I had been interrogated, arrested, convicted, jailed, it didn’t matter. None of it was real. It had all happened in a few seconds in my head while I slept safely in my bed. What happens in my dreams isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Even the worst nightmares are mere flashes and then they are over. I wake up, safe.

As I come to the realization that this place is not my true Home, that this life is not my real life, that one day I will “wake up” back in my true form, I am learning not to sweat the small stuff along the way. And most of it is truly small stuff. No matter how much money I accumulate I can’t take any of it with me. No matter what happens with my health, one day I will die and I will be whole. Relationships will be severed, temporarily, but love endures and they will be waiting for me when it’s my time to wake up. The good new is the bad stuff we leave behind. The good stuff- like love and relationships we send ahead.

Matthew 6:19-21. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.