Who am I? 


Jim finds meaning in a dream about a neglected puppy and his reaction to it. 

So today I am sitting here about 4:30 in the afternoon in Marietta, Ohio with my spouse and my mother playing our first post-Christmas game of Scrabble. My mother is ahead, of course, and I am in the middle, which is about where we always are. I had to debate about the category of this entry because it seems to fit in most of them.

It surely is about Alter Egos. I had a dream last night that kind of scared me and woke me up. I dreamed that I had forgotten a little puppy that had been hiding under the porch for about a week, and someone told me about it. I was so embarrassed, and stricken with shame, because this little dog could scarcely move from thirst and hunger and cold. I just swept him up in my arms and held him there for the longest time, and he began to perk up. But then when I took him back into the house and was getting ready to go in off the porch myself, I saw a man staring through the door window. He had a gun, and he shot me. I was thinking it was probably a fatal injury, but I woke up.

I pondered this dream and its meaning for a long time. I'll probably never know what it "really" meant, because I am too cheap and too skeptical to enter Freudian or Jungian analysis. What finally came to me was that the puppy might have been a symbol of Stephen's playful nature. You know, it's hard for a lot of old marrieds to stay in touch with their playful nature. And if that interpretation holds up, then the guy who killed me was probably a personification of my guilt. So today, I have been quite a bit more attentive to Stephen. We got him a manicure and a haircut. A lot more can be said here, but I'll just leave it at this.

I guess this is about "I'm Who" because I am reflecting on my reaction to other people.

I had told mom earlier this day about my blogging and my laptop and the webcams I am setting up for our family. Mom said, "What's a blog?" I explained it was like a journal on the web. She seemed determined to stay out of the computer world, and of course, with her eyesight, it would be difficult at best. But while we were sitting here playing Scrabble, I went upstairs and got the new laptop, thinking that I could work on a blog entry. So my mom became very agitated. She said, "I'm so confused. I don't even understand what you are doing." So I said, "Would you like to hear one of my blog entries?" She seemed interested, so I read her the entry The Most Precious Thing in the World. She said, "Well, that's very nice, very interesting."

Mom gets so bored with Stephen and me because we take so long to play. She tries to be patient with us. I just told her that if we couldn't take a long time and look up a word occasionally, we would never win even a single game. And she smiled and said, "I know," in that sly, knowing way that she does. It's the cutest thing.

I think I'm maybe becoming a little more caring lately. I know I'm a little more impressed when I see gentleness and love expressed between two people. Like when sister Vicki showed up today, and mom hadn't made her lunch yet. (That's something this 92 year old mother still does for her working daughter and son, Tom, every day. She makes their lunch.) My sister looked at her and said, very gently, "Mom, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't." But it was the gentle, reassuring WAY that Vicki said it that showed the love, not WHAT she said."

Mom thinks that Christ is coming soon to establish a new world order. Coming in the clouds to judge the sheep and the goats. Well, who knows, it could be true. But I think I see Christ coming in these gentle acts between people. Any time we tolerate and even appreciate each other, that is Heaven on Earth.

Oh, and by the way, guess who won the game that we have been playing? No one. Mom and I tied. It was kind of funny. I was ahead by 20 points for a while. But then mom did one of her amazing plays with the Q's and the Z's and ended up ahead. But then she started to feeling guilty. I told her that it didn't bother me at all that she had won. I still had a final play. She peeked at my tiles and showed me how I could make a final play that tied with her score. It was one of those little mini-miracles that I base my faith on.
 

Posted: Thu - December 29, 2005 at 03:36 PM          

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