A while ago I heard the former Archbishop of Wales and former Archbishop of Canterbury speak. I wanted to write extra content explaining what I heard. 'Rowan' as I'm told to call him, preached in April at Holy Trinity Llandudno as part of an evening service designed for a national Church in Wales conference hosted here.
Possibly the BFG movie has influenced me equally to Lord Williams' sermon. I've just returned from the Spielberg film. In my defence, I sketched this post out aeons ago. I've waded tricky emotional waters with my faith since this turning point sermon, when I had to admit I wasn't truly satisfied with going with the flow on a Sunday mostly to keep the peace, be amicable, and agreeable. These are great qualities. I'm not sure they're authentically me. I'm made to worship and that isn't always about retreat. There can be a 'go' aspect too, and I've revised my opinion of Rowan Williams' sermon accordingly.
The scriptural base for Rowan's sermon was Daniel 2, in which Nebuchadnezzar calls Daniel to interpret his dream, that predicts the rise of an Empire greater than Nebuchadnezzar's own.
The instruction Rowan gave was to listen to the dreams of the community. This is what pricked my ears. The exact wording used was 'listen to the dreams of their hearts.' I listened closely for twenty minutes and who 'they' were wasn't clarified. This was a small problem for me because 'community' is a word that has become contextual. I hope the clergy at the conference knew who their community was. One of the reasons I wanted to revisit this moment is because I waver over who mine is, and who I bear the greatest responsibility towards. And who are the groups of people whose health I can mutually benefit the best? This is a question really worth pressing into.
We dream while asleep during a specific phase of rest. Dreams are actually the body's way of discarding memories. Typical of the Bible that the remnants of sleep when recalled the following morning have once in a while proved occasions of visitation for biblical characters. This reminds us that God is always speaking to us, seeking for us to listen.
It's also a good nudge that rest isn't as straightforward as 'on' or 'off' for everyone, I know there are people out there who have those settings. I'm not one of them and I find it hard to dial my alertness down. This usually means I pay attention to the wrong things. You can imagine that Nebuchadnezzar was possibly similar in that he was a leader who was extremely insecure. When you lack authority and responsibility in life this breeds insecurity. Nebuchadnezzar had authority and responsibility but he lacked legitimacy and was irresponsible. That meant people schemed behind his back.
I perceived that underneath Rowan's talk of dreaming, his sermon was about legitimacy. If you have had any dealings with mental health issues you will know how tricksy this issue is and the stigma that surrounds it. Likewise, women who have suffered domestic abuse come against the legitimacy problem when their evidence is insufficient or the abuse they have suffered is not criminal at all. For example, it could be perpetrated by a third party, or via a technology that is not mapped well by the criminal justice system. In every community there are people and demographics who have a good deal less legitimacy than their peers. In effect their whole lives can be reduced to dreams when certain aspects of them are fictionalised by institutions who deny or refuse to deal with their truths. I was sorry this inequality was not tackled head-on by Rowan Williams who was well known as an Archbishop of Canterbury for his incisive social critiques.
Rowan went to great pains to show that priests were holy because of their code of being separate and faithful, just as Daniel was faithful in his diet as a Jew living in Babylon. Behaviour is extremely important to legitimacy, which describes a relationship of genuine trust that doesn't force power as often as it might if compliance was not freely given. In the political world, we favour removal when players lose their trusted reputations. We vote out, if we can. In the ecclesiastical and civil spheres removal is problematic, this is especially the case in the church which I was told during a recent sermon at Holy Trinity has a permanent recruitment crisis. Therefore, there was implicit within Rowan's instructions to listen to the community that the clergy are in addition to be accountable, and answer to the validity of the dreams themselves as prophetic signs that will point the mission of the church in the right direction.
The relationship of priests to their parishes is complicated because we see ecclesiastical orders as a token of God's power, particularly because of their knowledge of holy texts, and in the Church in Wales, because of the appointment of clergy by church hierarchy, bishops and archbishops, who are anointed for this role. Yet parishioners today tend to have individual relationships with God also, through Jesus, and by their own behaviours: prayer, worship, work, service, Bible study meditation, quiet time etc.. We need to be taught how to behave.
Dreaming can play a part in behaviour change because it encourages us to examine with our conscious mind what our subconscious, or spiritual mind may be asking for, or rejecting.
The part of Rowan's sermon that took me outside my comfort zone was he gave priests the authority to encourage or discourage behaviour change through listening. I'm a woman who has struggled with my own poor behaviour patterns, and who has dealt with the adverse consequences of controlling, and restricting behaviours, whose negative effects have limited my mental health.
I'm sure I knew already that priests have the latent power to colour my dreams and make them bolder and a better image of Christ. Hearing this spoken was jilting because of the jarring nature of my experiences, not only within the Welsh church, within those in England too, who too readily filter out dreamers who want to escape from a reality that is already negative, a construction of the world that the church itself has helped to create.
Complaining was implicitly addressed within Rowan's sermon. Clergy were implored to persevere when they failed, given that failure is a function of effort, and once we return to our guiding values, anyone who is a Christ follower should be enabled to cast off this shadow and return to living in the light of wisdom that learns through experience.
I only wish the church would listen to my experience. Really listen, to what my hopes and dreams were when I started to attend church, and what my heart says, and help me find my vision of Jesus in those broken pieces.