A week ago Monday, I was early for the three pm Bible study with the women at the St. Louis County Jail. I headed in thru the metal detector and back into the program area to put out the chairs and grab the Bibles from the locked cupboard. One woman, who had been meeting with the chaplain, joined me rather than go back to the women’s unit to wait with the others to be released to programs.
I knew her fairly well as she had been attending the Monday group for several months. We chatted while waiting for the other women. Suddenly lots of alarms went off and white lights flashed. We were in a lockdown. Turns out one of the men had pulled a sprinkler head off the fire system. Silly boy, now we would be stuck for at least a little while with no one allowed to go anywhere.
We would have time over the next one and a half hours to listen to one another. We began with the easy but precious stuff, our kids. Hers were safe with family. Also, it turned out we had some common friends like Donna Howard, from Loaves and Fishes. Donna had been like a mother to her and had given her and her sons a place to live when they had nowhere else to go.
Our conversation deepened as she shared one of her dreams with me. The women often share their dreams as part of our time together. They have learned to write the dreams down of scraps of paper so as not to have them vanish away, easily forgotten. I always bring a dream dictionary in which I look up some of the symbols found in their dreams. I make sure the women know that they are the only ones who can truly interpret their dreams. But over the years I have come to believe that their dreams certainly are a powerful connection to the holy.
Her dream was of a white bat in a cave. We began by looking up white. It seems that any animal that appears in a dream as white is a sacred visitation. We then found bat, “You are exploring the darker, hidden side of your nature. . . the shadow (nighttime) is the most valuable area for truly understanding who you are, so the presence of a bat in your dreams indicates that you are getting assistance from the unknown.”
The dream made sense to her. She had come to the Bible study with an armload of books on spirituality. The chaplain had given her books on native spirituality, Christianity and Buddhism. She was on a path of healing. We talked more about how her path could include the teachings from all of these traditions, especially her native one. It was a path out of the darkness into love, especially love for herself. She mentioned that she often thought of Donna, although dead Donna was the one guiding and guarding her now. In a way, jail had become for her a cave of hope.
We talked about the story of Jesus and his resurrection. It too is a story that begins in a cave. And like so many resurrection stories, it begins in a dark place. The Gospel of John says “while it was still dark” Mary goes to the tomb, a cave. At times, our fears and sadness stalk us too at night. We with Mary have risen from sleepless nights and wandered aimlessly in the dark.
In the cave Mary will find not a white bat but a white linen shroud and a napkin folded up. A folded napkin in first century Palestine meant that the guest was not done eating, if you had finished your meal, you crumpled your napkin. A folded napkin meant you were waiting for more food. There will be more, God says, the signs are there. Signs in a small bit of folded cloth, a bit of white light and bat wings of hope. But sometimes we have to enter the caves to find the signs.
I will never forget the beauty of Antelope Canyon. We went there during an especially dark time in my own life. In the play of darkness and light of those caves, I found healing. Our Navajo guide was so good at showing us where to look and explaining the sacred history of this canyon. There was so much beauty in the rock, in the dark and in the light.
We all need guides as we make our way through the darkness. Sometimes these guides are a white bat, a folded napkin or just a friend who will listen to our dreams. I close with part of a poem that Gary Boelhower wrote for Easter 2020,
“And when we listen closely we hear the holy one speaking our name with comfort and challenge; you are loved beyond grief, even beyond death, you are called to be light, bright shining light in the darkness.”
Comments are closed.