Chapter 31 Of Monkey Men and Winter Doldrums

Every so often, a gentle stream of consciousness merges headlong into a bubbling brook of random musings. Almost immediately, they've become one, and their competing, congealing waters form a strong, driven, rapids-filled river of raving, rambling reflections.

This is what happens to me when I try to define a word that seemingly began with the spoken language, but it finds its meaning well beyond me, and above me, and certainly before me.

And I say all of this because it just so happens that a few days ago, the breakfast table chat turned to dreams and nightmares and such, mostly because Levi found himself in our room in the middle of the night; at four a.m., to be precise. He was reeling from a nightmare involving a scary man at church, who, apparently while dying, and dressed like a monkey, was screaming “truth!”

I remember putting my hand on Levi's side, right there by his ribcage, and he was breathing in and out, extra deep and heavy. His pulse was racing and his heart was thumping and I wondered if nightmares put an incredible strain on children because it seemed like his heart might beat right out of his little chest. He whispered to me that he couldn’t get the image of the monkey man out of his head, and so he crawled into bed next to me and we talked instead of ice cream and sundaes and different flavors for each day, and this seemed to help him. This helped me too, because the whole monkey man thing was freaking me out.

When I asked him about it later that morning, he didn’t remember a thing. He just woke up in our bed and that was fine with him, his heartbeat apparently back to normal.

Chloe, on the other hand, while chewing on her bagel, piped in for anyone who would listen, that she had no such dream. She had just black.

I looked at her mother, sipping her coffee, and mouthed out the words. She had just black?

Kristie explained to me that this meant she had nothing. No dreams, no nightmares. Just black.

Of course, of all the potential for nighttime visions, whether they be good dreams, run of the mill dreams, just black, or even nightmares about dying church men in monkey suits screaming “truth,” I do think there’s something of truth itself in dreams; some seemingly random but unbiased, unfiltered combination of sound bytes and rapid images and fleeting feelings delivered by frayed neurons at a time when we’re basically helpless. We just get what we get, paralyzed victims in a way, lying there in the dark, forced to watch, usually in living color. It is as if God has our utmost attention, and he’ll use that time as He pleases, to remind us of deep impressions from the day as He dances over us; and from it we’ll awaken with our very own riddle to unfold and interpret -- to figure out, or I suppose, forget.

Sometimes, as nightmares have their way, I wonder if He even reveals His truth by granting some leeway to another, a certain someone with evil intent, as a byproduct of sin, of some dalliance, of this broken world with its compromised nature.

Maybe it’s apropos of nothing, but right about now, to be writing about dreams, actually having just black seems to fit -- because, well, it just so happens that I’ve been in a bit of a funk. I need to wake up from it, as if, perhaps, some cosmic finger has hit the pause button and here I am, waiting to propel forward -- like I'm some flailing amoeba in a Petri dish.

I could blame it on the winter, I suppose. Maybe I just need something to rouse me from this hibernation. Something to get my heart pounding. Something to quicken my pulse. You might know the feeling.

Last night, for what it's worth, I did dream that I couldn’t find the on-ramp for the northbound lanes on the highway. Everything seemed to head south. I would stop in the town square and I would ask for directions and people everywhere were walking their dogs and they would smile at me like I was an idiot and point. Turn here, and then there, they’d say, as if the entrance had been there all along. And I’d get on, satisfied and relieved, only to find I was back on the ramp heading south again. So I’d get off at the next exit and I’d return to a crazed circle, much like the aforementioned flailing amoeba.

Dreams like that, and often the toiling we endure in these funks of ours makes me think of a verse, in the book of Jude, that perhaps we’re just wild ocean waves leaving nothing on the beach but the foam of our shame; lost stars in outer space on their way to a black hole. (Jude 1:13, The Message)

This whole thing troubles me, really, because I wonder what truth God might be trying to whisper. We all know He uses dreams quite often, and He always has, all the way back to the beginning.

But enough about me and my dream. Levi’s nightmare begged some ethereal question for me, and that is, what really is truth, aside from the fact that a dying monkey man in church was screaming it? I realize this is very deep and introspective, but I hope you'll give me an umbrella of grace, if only for a moment.

So, here's what I think: Whatever truth is, it would seem that, at the very least, we’ve watered down its meaning. The pursuit for all that’s supposed to be true has become less of a search and more of a peeling away. Little by little we uncover layers of the truth onion. What’s true is what we’re destined to find exposed beneath the surface. With each peel we get closer to the real stench of it. It burns our eyes and it makes us cry.

Because of this ongoing quest to unbury it, what we discover of truth has evolved into something pretty disappointing. We want our kids to tell us the truth, but really, if we were honest, the truth is something we’d rather not hear. Far from being limited to children, we plead with stiff upper lips to those closest to us that they give us the truth. Give it to us straight. And in the aftermath of this so called truth, we promise that we’ll love them anyway.

Prosecutors promise the public that they’ll deliver the truth to the juries of the world so that the accused of the world can receive their just punishment. The witnesses for the prosecution, and I suppose the defense, swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We walk through our daily lives with the best intentions of revealing our true selves and searching for the true character of those we love. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m not too excited about the prospect of people finding the true me. It’s messy in there and not at all what truth should be.

Truth is what everyone is trying to get at it, but I’m convinced it eludes most of the seekers. Truth has become plain ugly. Even a beer company has been telling us that their brand is, in a word, true.

But there has to be another option. There is, in fact, and this is what I’m getting at, because I believe that God is behind everything true. I think we’ve collectively lost sight of the fact that God defines the word, because He is truth.

So, could it be that Levi’s nightmare about a dying monkey man in church screaming "truth" has served no other purpose than for me, and, hopefully now, you, to dissect and analyze and examine as a new kind of church the mere fact that God is the true meaning of true?

I think so, because He is what we’re looking for, desperately searching for in fact as we circle around and around, trying to find the right on-ramp. He is behind what is good and yes, true, the very One who dances over us as we lay paralyzed, unable to propel forward. He is who we crave when we’re reeling from a nightmare. He is deep and dark at times, of course, but He fashions the pulse through our veins, causing the hearts of young and old to beat wildly and nearly out of our chests at times. Yet, He is gentle; He puts his hand there, at our side, as we stumble to Him, frightened and alone. He wants us to crawl next to Him and figure out a better way to look at things.

He is why we often get frustrated with the minute details that keep us apart from each other, from entering into real community -- the very gaps that evolve into denominational divides, because most of it draws us away from His truth. Why? Because He was, He is, and He will always be what propels us forward and beyond this blackness, this aimlessness, this funk and this wildly rambling gaggle of thoughts and visions, of dreams, of nightmares, of monkey men and winter doldrums.

In it all and through it all I must break through this melancholy and remember just this one thing, the very One who is truth.

Maybe this whole thing seems a bit surreal, and in fact, dream-like, even just black; or maybe, just maybe, it will be one of the deep impressions from our day, and from it we’ll awaken with our very own riddle to unfold and interpret -- to figure out, or God forbid, forget.

All of this to say, that, well, I just think truth finds its meaning well beyond us. And above us.

And certainly before us.