I'm not one to think that God speaks to people directly and if some one told me that God spoke to them in a dream I would think they were an mad. But last night, well I think God spoke to me. Not in a dream, but through one.
In my dream I was a wedding. I don't know who's, but who ever they were they must have been very important because the officiator was a Bishop. I don't know how, but I found myself at the entrance to a grand Cathedral with the Bishop and I told him that his priests weren't there to help him with the mass. I seemed to think that he couldn't do it without help. "That's okay," he said in the kindest voice I had ever heard, "I'll just make you one," and he walked to the alter and bid me fallow.
The next thing I knew I was kneeling before the alter dressed in a white robe, and the Bishop put his hands on my head and made me a priest and while he spoke the words I remember feeling such joy that I cried. I also remember that his hands were covered in the anointing oil, so much that it dripped down my head and on to my back. I could feel it even as I put on the priestly vestments. But above all I remember the great feeling of being so close to God.
Some time passed in the dream, that is to say the location changed and I was know in a monastery but to me it seemed to be just an instant after the ordination. And I felt great fear and regret. I was glad to be serving, but I felt that I was in the wrong place. I feared for my life; I thought of myself at the lectern giving homilies, but not really doing anything. I knew intrinsically that I wouldn't be anyone of authority, anyone who could make a true substantive difference. I would be wasting all my potential. And I felt regret for the things I wouldn't have, a loving woman, something I have always wanted but would now never have. And a family with children, sons and daughters, who I could make the world better for. Being a priest I felt deep down wasn't right. It wasn't wrong either but I new that it wasn't what I was meant for. I knew I was meant for something different, something greater.
But I could not leave the priesthood. The die was cast and the dishonor would have been to much and I prayed for salvation and yet resigned myself to this fate. Then I was told I was no longer a priest. That the ordination was in valid because the bishop had been only one not three, as is required. And I felt humility and relief, and a sense of small joy but it soon left me. At that I awoke.
So I have had all day today, Palm Sunday, think about my dream. When I look back at it I feel certainty that t was more then the average dream, that it meant something. You must know this to understand; a few years ago I seriously considered becoming a priest, and the only reason I didn't was because my parents so wanted me to go to college. But while there I decided that it wasn't for me and so instead pursed film because to give into my desire to focus on politics I felt would have threatened me. As though it was naturally corrupting. Quickly though I realized that I had to go there if only because it felt so natural. But in the back of my mind I have always questioned my initial decision not to become a priest. This dream though seems to be saying that I have made the right choice, that the priesthood is for some, but not me. That I must pursue what makes me happy not joyful for that is so fleeting. And what makes me happy is serving the greater good and that is best done through the power of politics.
