Boggart

My nightmares never involve monsters or blood and guts. Last night I dreamed that a bunch of people from my past paraded by me, each in a context in which it was impossible for me to talk to them. The ensuing scenes were ingenious, cinematic, sadistic.

It was wrenching, and strange. For the most part, these aren't even people that I miss or even think about, and yet I felt this sense of terrible grief, as if I were suddenly confronted with the irredeemable loss of every person that I have cared about but don't happen to see anymore. When I woke up, I was utterly exhausted and distraught.

I'm trying to figure out how to deal with such things, other than ignoring them. I know there's a school of thought that cites 2 Corinthians 10:5 and instructs us to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." But that verse seems to refer to refining one's theology (the first part of the sentence reads: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God") rather than dealing with deeply rooted fears.

And maybe remembering our nightmares, though traumatic, offers us some advantage in our struggle to cultivate a faith rich enough to supply us with all that we need. In such dreams, our subterranean fears rupture our otherwise-smooth surfaces, exposing themselves like enemies brazenly emboldened by nightfall.

What I finally recognized by asking God what the nightmare had to teach me was a lack, something I need and now know to ask to Him to render more unshakable: a sense of the constancy and faithfulness of the friendship of Christ, and hope in the promise of an eternity where time does not limit relationships with people we love.