A disturbing dream

Well a research project was turned in today...and I survived singing for the worship taping last week (Even got told I have a "good voice" and to "keep working on my chanting.") Impressive, eh??!

Anyway for the research project, I wrote a Bible Study exploring salvation, both in the context of the book of Romans, and the Confessions of the Lutheran church....so who gets saved, who doesn't, why not, that sort of thing.

Which led to this disturbing dream...

Richard and I are on a cruise ship and it's sinking. Just about everyone is pretty calm, seemingly accepting the fact that they are going to die. I however was not calm; I was freaking out. I didn't want to die, and I didn't want Richard to die too. I also was terribly concerned about what would happen to us when we die. A friend of mine was on the boat, and he also was calm. I was crying and said to him, you're lucky because your fiance isn't on the boat, so you must be happy to know that she will keep on living. He told me, no that's not true and that Richard and I were the lucky ones because we'd be dying together, living together in eternity. I then went to check out how far sunk the ship was, and found many people standing in the bottom, letting the water come up over them (again, apparently just letting death come, rather than fighting or going to the top and waiting for it a little longer). Then I also saw a former pastor of mine, who I haven't spoken with in a couple years, and just as the water was about to go over head, we hugged and said goodbye.

Then I woke up.

I was pretty disturbed, feeling like I wanted to cry. Poor Richard was wondering if it meant our love was sinking! But I think it's completely the result of working on that project all day yesterday and thinking about salvation.

I don't like to think about it. It makes my head hurt. Some might say that since I'm in seminary, or since I want to be a leader in the church, that I should really want to delve into these issues deeper, really hash out. But frankly, I'd rather just leave some things up to mystery that is God, the mystery that is faith...rather than spend my earthly life debating who gets saved.

Oh well, I like to be different. :)