Dreaming with eyes open . . .
By Rev. Dr Katherine Rainger, Senior Chaplain
This year’s CBCA Book Week theme is ‘Dreaming with Eyes Open . . .’ This phrase playfully brings together two notions that seem opposite, disrupting preconceived notions, while opening new possibilities.
Jasmine Seymour, a Dharug woman, teacher, author, and illustrator, responded to the theme with artwork to enhance this year’s Book Week celebrations. In this short clip, Jasmine talks about creation stories from her culture, and the way that the dreaming is not confined to the past. Jasmine’s artwork and stories encourage us to see, “all the things that are hidden but also seen.”
Our Gospel reading this week also encourages us to “dream with eyes open.” Jesus disrupts the status quo while in the house of an important religious leader (Luke 14: 1-14). “Seeing” becomes a motif in the passage. “Everyone was carefully watching Jesus” due to his reputation for saying and doing the unexpected! “Perception” becomes another theme when Jesus “saw how the guests had tried to take the best seats.”
Biblical scholar Carolyn J. Sharp notes that the u-shaped three-sided table at the Roman banquet was designed to allow equal access to food, conversation, and entertainment. However, where you sat was an immediate indicator of your social status in relation to the other guests. Jesus encourages his listeners to look beyond the immediate indicators of status and instead to see the people around them as God sees them, as those worth of inclusion, dignity, and an invitation to dinner!
Stories of all kinds nurture our imagination in order that we might see reality differently. After sharing a photo of my Book Week costume with a friend, she sent me a reflection on fairy tales, and in particular, The Wizard of Oz from the book Led into Mystery: Faith Seeking Answers in Life and Death by John W de Gruchy (see in particular p. 40 – 43).
De Gruchy opens the possibilities of “dreaming with eyes open”, as we, like Dorothy, learn to think for ourselves (finding a brain for scarecrow), feel for ourselves (finding a heart for the Tin Man) and find the courage (the Cowardly Lion) to defeat the wicked witch. Of course, another reading of this story is that it is the people who we encounter along the road, those who become our beloved companions, who are a source of our redemption.
God, you join us on the road
and in the twists and turns
of our stories.
Help us to dream with
eyes open, to treat others
with respect and grace.
Amen
Blessings, Rev. Katherine