I was happy to see that Mike Lindell, the owner of the ”My Pillow” company had
re-purposed some of his factories tonight masks needed to protect from the COVID-19 virus. The advertisements for the my pillow are probably the only advertisements
that I found to be absolutely true. I have several “my pillows” and they are absolutely amazing. My neck pain and other issues one away as soon as I started using The pillow. This is not an advertisement for my pillow, but it is the beginning of the story.

I have an interesting dream life. The other night I had a dream that was more of a
memory. It was a kaleidoscope of real events almost laid out in a timeline format.
The first green was being in a storm, a summer storm, in the dark with a large group
of adults. I know that I was a child because I was wandering around among a group of
people and I came up to most of their elbows. As I wandered around I recognized the
scene. We were standing in the parking lot of Zion Church in Gardena North Dakota.
There was a tremendous amount of lightning and some wind, but it was also fairly
hot. As I listen to the conversations around me I realized that’s the people who
were gathered were folks from the little town who have no basements in the houses.
The ones who were there feared that a tornado was coming and we’re about to enter
the church and go into the basement. Everyone of course wanted to make sure that
there really was a tornado coming and not look like fools from the conversations
that I could make out. In Gardena at that time there was also a large school
building and someone had gone into the school and brought out a text book about
weather.  Someone was reading the description of what a tornado would look like,
while others were pointing in the direction that seem to show a funnel shaped cloud.
It was ominous and at the same time exciting. In the dream I noticed two types of
people were gathered in two separate areas. They were not separated by a great
distance but separated by attitude. One group was calmly studying the problems and
obviously had a plan and we’re working on their plan. The other group was not
hysterical but they were what I would consider high strong. There was some crying
and some raised voices screaming for minds to be made up before it was too late.  I
found myself clinging to the first group because even in the midst of a kind of a
chaotic situation there was a sense of calm. It was interesting that we were
gathered outside the church. I never asked if there was a basement in the school.
The dream ended and moved along to another episode. When I woke up I realized that this event had actually happened in my life almost exactly the way the dream portrayed it.  My grandfather was a crippled very tall man who couldn’t stand without crutches and there was no way we could get him into the family’s root cellar. He could get by being carried by several strong men and  be taken into the church basement.

In my minds eye I see him propped up in the front seat of one of the few automobiles that he could fit in calmly waiting to see what was going to happen. What is strange about the event is I know what happened but I don’t remember how it ended. Obviously we weren’t wiped out by a tornado, but I don’t remember if we all went home within an hour or so, or went into the basement of the church. That part has been lost to me.  The dream continued moving through a different vignettes of my life.

One was about the absolute a terror I saw on the faces of my aunt and my mother over a polio scare when we were in San Diego. My dream took me down to the Naval Hospital and the long lines that queued up before nurses with big needles.

Another was the faces of my father and my uncle as we listened to “sputnik” pass over
San Diego. I’ve written about that in this blog space before.

There was the stunned demeanor of an entire congregation as they gathered for
worship two days after Kennedy was shot and hearing that Oswald had been shot as
well.  It seemed as if the whole world had gone mad.

Of course 911 conjured emotions many if us had never felt before.  The sense of violation and anger and fear and wondering what was going on  Remembering the strange truth comes into many minds that we can get up in the morning and be vaporized by afternoon.

I remember all the talk that 911 would bring the church back and people would begin to worship again and the mission of the church would be supported and flourish and the exact opposite happened.

Anyway everyone of those dreams had someone who calmed the fear and bridged the troubled waters.  Whether by word or presence they made people feel secure.  They often gave the impression that they were in control of the situation even though obviously, even the most ardent environmentalist global warming wacko, can’t claim that.

Jesus was a man in control and when everyone else was in panic mode he was always calm and secure.  Peter chopping a man’s ear off in the situation at the garden and his arrest could have been a disaster for all the disciples and a massacre if Christ had not spoken his simple words, So many times he is the calming influence and he is in charge.

That is the message of the Scriptures that Christ is in charge.  He is in charge of all things.  “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”, he says.  He is with us always to the end of the age.