THE RUT OF DREAMS

Dreams ought to be the place we see our fantasies. And what is a dream for one person has nothing to do with what is a dream for somebody else.

I have to admit that my idea of what would a fantasy come true is certainly not what a whole lot of people would regard as a good thing. Although I'm not going to spend time going into the details about that last sentence, I think that my creativity helps me appreciate in many ways the need we all have to look beyond life's window with our own sight.

The problem I think within Christian circles is that you can hardly feel free to share your dreams, which are really one's fantasies painting our desires as I see it. Oh, if you get all spiritual and talk about heaven, the Lord or loving others, by all means you can talk all day and even be admired or impress others.

But what about dark dreams? What happens when you find yourself lurking in the shadows of sanity and actually enjoying that little corner of depravity. Heaven forbid! Right! Yep, that is the standard party line you will get from some Christians.

So the first rule of surviving in a house of worship, is be careful what you confess. Oh you can have sins, but they can't be EVIL sins. Like there are really any other kind.

In the scriptures the Lord spoke of thoughts in a way that they often express the desires of our heart. And if one's desires are by God's standards sinful, then even if you don't act on them, the desire expresses sin.

I don't think he wanted to lay a guilt trip on us. I think it was more a statement of the Lord knowing what really simmers in our heart.

Which is his way of reminding us that we can pretend all we want, but it won't make the creepy shadowy parts of our soul suddenly lily white and pure. What is even more tragic is when people come to that point of thinking where it is assumed a good deed will somehow offset a bad one.

The truth is no amount of good deeds will ever earn a single second of forgiveness. So pretending you never have a bad thought, never say a bad word or drift mentally into those perverted abysses is not a process than ever truly helps.

I don't feel there is gain in deception and especially self-deception. It only forces us farther away from the type of honest intimacy we can only have with the Lord when we accept the truth about what lurks on the inside.

Some will never learn that lesson. Others do. And when the dark thoughts intrude, we can learn how it truly conveys God's love and grace that he knew those were there all the time. All he desires is we learn that truth for ourselves instead of playing the game called denial.