No, I’m not invoking the great MLK, I literally had a dream last night that I want to share. In the spirit of the Jenkens Lesson, and fueled by my addiction to Lost…
A man (John Locke in my dream) dies and finds himself in a subterranean cavern filled with unrecognizable creatures. He is told these creatures are God’s creation (yes, my dream had a narrative) but God was displeased with them. They were all too selfish and never learned to get along with one another. To demonstrate the point, the man is shown a hole in the ceiling of the cavern that leads to Paradise, but is too high for any one man to reach. “See,” the narrator says to the man, “these creatures had every opportunity to leave Hades, but they would not help each other escape. Look,” as the man is directed towards two humans, “here are creatures that understand what it means to love their neighbor.” And the man watches as one person lifts the other up to the hole, into Paradise.
“But there is a flaw in this plan; one person is always left behind,” observed the man. “That is correct,” replied the narrator. “That is why God sent his only son to die. Jesus had to die in order to come here. He is the only one who can leave this place under his own power. And The Christ is the one who lifts us all up to Paradise so that no one is left behind.”
And then I awoke.
Maybe subconsciously I was looking forward to tonight’s episode of Lost and pondering Locke’s fate- falling down into a cavern in order to leave the Island (Hades, or Paradise?), dying, and resurrecting back on the Island- and recognizing the recent religious references (Thomas the doubter, 316, the church being the only place that can find Paradise). Or maybe this was more divinely inspired? I’ll take the latter.