Dreams
Just a quick note to tell you about a workshop I have developed on the topic of Dream Interpretation and Spiritual Growth. If you are like me, I never heard anything about the role of dreams in Christian spiritu-ality as I went through the seminary. It was not until I began training as a spiritual director that I was intro-duced to dream work as a tool for spiritual growth. Immediately, a whole new world (literally, the world of dreams) opened up to me, both as a dreamer and as a spiritual director.
In Scripture, we find God often uses dreams to give perspective or remove barriers for interpreting and applying his Word. He utilizes dreams from Genesis to Revelation, and declares that He would continue to use them in the last days. "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." (Acts 2:17). When you total up all dreams and visions in the Bible, and all the stories and actions which come out of these dreams and visions, you have about one-third of the texts, which is roughly equal to the size of the New Testament! This amount of inspired data should cause us to take notice at least!
Outside of the Biblical record, such giants as St. Justin Martyr, Polycarp (Martyrdom, chapter 5), St. Irenaeus, St. Clement of Alexandria (Stromata), Tertullian (De Anima), St. Athanasius (Against the Heathen), St. Augustine of Hippo (see entire 12th book of De Genesi ad Literam, Confessions, IX, City of God, XXII), St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew, IV), St. Anthony of the Desert, St. Basil the Great (Commentarium in Isaiam Prophetam), Gregory of Nazianzus (Carminum, Book 2), Gregory of Nyssa (On the Making of Man), St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, and John Cassian all affirmed God's presence/leading in dreams. Tertullian wrote in his introduction to the Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas that dreams are one of the gifts of God and he believed dreams came to people of his own day just as they did to biblical characters and the apostles. Origen (Against Celsus) saw dreams as part of God's providence "for the benefit of the one who had the dream and those who hear it from him." St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in 250 AD, asserted that the councils of the church were guided by God through dreams.
St. Jerome, while speaking positively of his own dream experiences (Letter XXII, to Ekustochium), chose to translate the Hebrew word meaning "soothsayers" or "witches" in 3 passages of the Vulgate as "observ-ing of dreams." In seven other places, he sticks with "soothsayers" and "witches" but for some reason devi-ated in Deuteronomy 18:10, Leviticus. 19:26, 2 Chronicles 33:6, all of which have all been corrected in modern translations. As a result, observing and interpreting dreams ceased in the Western Church, but not amongst the Eastern Orthodox. There was little attention paid to the subject of dreams until Freud in the 19th Century.
Likewise, the Lutheran Confessions state, "It is written that when Anthony asked God to show him what progress he was making in his way of life, God pointed in a dream..." (Tappert, pp. 268). A bit further on, we read how God "...pointed him in a dream to a certain shoemaker...as a basis for comparison. The next day Anthony went into the city and came to the shoemaker in order to find out..." (Apology to the Augs-burg Confession, Article XXVII). The natural reading of these passages leads one to conclude the Confes-sors understood this as a literal historical event in the life of Anthony, namely God giving him a revelatory dream.
In modern times, sleep laboratories have proven that everyone dreams one to two hours each night during a certain period of sleep known as alpha level, which is light sleep. The average person sleeping for eight hours a night will dream about one to two hours of that time. Alpha level sleep is where one has what is called Rapid Eye Movement (REM). They have discovered that if they awaken a person every time REM begins, preventing him from dreaming, after about three nights the individual will begin to show signs of having a nervous breakdown. Clearly dreams are an inner release mechanism which helps provide us with emotional balance and maintain our sanity. Dreams can be considered guardians of our mental and emo-tional well-being. We can liken this to defragging the hard disk.
Although we live in a sinful world and our collective unconscience can fragment and distort any number of things that God is trying to impart through His Word, dreams are often the most honest and reliable mes-sengers of the condition of one's heart (Dan. 2:30), as well as the voice of God within one's heart (Acts 2:17). You cannot observe your dreams and remain a Christian phony for long. Dreams will reveal what you are doing and will not allow you to ignore it. Hypocrisy in our emotional lives, heart struggles and sanctification issues are often shown to us symbolically in our dreams. The most common areas will be physical health issues, relationships to other people, circumstances and events that surround your life, min-istry or vocation questions. All of these are important to your heart, so these may be portrayed symboli-cally in your dreams. Dreams can guide us in an auxiliary sense to the external Word of God. Dreams, like prophetic words, can sometimes be warnings, invitations, reminders, etc. in how the Word of God should be applied in a very specific manner to each of our unique situations and calling in life.
What do we cover in the workshop? The workshop gives (1) an overview of dreams in the Bible, (2) how to recall your dreams, (3) a basic method of interpreting your dreams, (4) a look at some common symbols, and then (5) we actually do some dream work with the dreams of people in the audience.
Specific topics include:Defining Dream and Vision, Some Scientific Observations Concerning Dreams, Some Reasons We Should Listen to Our Dreams, Things You Can Do to Help Recall Your Dreams, Foundational Principles for Interpreting Dreams, Discerning Dreams About Yourself, A Simple Method for Interpreting a Dream About Yourself, Dreams About Others, Sexual dreams, Repeated dreams, Nightmares, A Method and Rules for Interpreting Dreams in a Group.
The workshop can be given in a two-hour, one evening format or a five-hour, one evening and half day format. This format allows people to receive some introductory material, then go home and have a dream, and bring it back the next day for interpretation. If any of this interests you, let me know. If you would like to submit one of your own dreams for inter-pretation, you can email it to me.
Lectio Divina
The ancient Benedictine format for meditation, Lectio Divina, or "Divine Reading," is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures. It is a way of allowing the Scriptures to become again what God intended that they should be - a means of uniting us to God. Time set aside in a special way for Lectio Divina enables us to discover in our daily life an underlying spiritual rhythm. Within this rhythm, we discover an increasing ability to offer more of ourselves and our relationships to the Father, and to accept the embrace that God is continuously extending to us in the person of his son, Jesus Christ.
As Pr. Stutz teaches it in conjunction with the four styles of meditation (Ignatian, Augustinian, Franciscan, Thomistic), it becomes an excellent means of understanding a scriptural passage from the four principal temperaments (SJ, NF, SP, NT) of the Myers-Briggs inventory.
The traditional Lectio Divina consists of four steps: Lectio, an intense reading of the passage several times; Meditatio, conceptually thinking about the issues in the reading, (using one of the four styles of meditation - see link to the right on "Styles of Meditation"); Oratio, praying on the issues arising in the meditation; and Contemplatio, sitting quietly and listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying. Lectio Divina moves us to specific actions resulting from the fruit of our interaction with God in and through the text.
Pr. Stutz has several ways to present this material to your group. You might consider a brief overview in a one-hour lecture as part of a larger series on spiritual formation. This works well for an Advent or Lenten series on the subject. The full introductory workshop on Lectio Divina, teaches the method of Lectio Divina as a way to pray the sacred scriptures. It presents a Christian tradition of prayer that through reading, reflecting, responding and resting in the Word of God one's relationship with God is nourished and deepens. The workshop consists of presentations that focus on:
Reading the Word of God: The Word of God is read in a listening manner with "the ear of one's heart." One is attentive to the phrase, sentence or one word that is noticed. The participants experience the method.
Reflecting on the Word of God: The Word of God is reflected upon and the phrase, sentence or one word that captures one's attention that touches one is savored and held reflectively. The participants experience the method.
Responding to the Word of God: The Word of God is responded to in a spontaneous manner. One may express a prayer, a concern, a question. The participants experience the method.
Resting with the Word of God: The Word of God is rested with in the silence. One allows it to speak in the quiet of one's heart. The participants experience the method.
Becoming a Word of God: The transformative power of the Word of God is experienced as one is faithful to Lectio Divina. The participants explore the fruits of one's deepening relationship with God.
The participants have both the group and individual experience of Lectio Divina. The best way to present this is in a one-day workshop of four hours with additional time for a lunch period and free time. Total of about six hours for this workshop.
