Around midnight I woke with this dream:

Jesus comforted me.

And later:

A light-skinned young couple, devoted to each other, sits on a piano bench. His tapered fingers played the accompaniment to the Jesus hymn they sing, with full voice.

 This pair of consoling dreams empowers me to trust my old body’s continuing diminishment, one day at a time, until my last one. Practicing CPA’s Step I also supports this process with its emphasis upon cultivating an honest relationship with my body. Gentleness is also paramount.

The first dream’s consolation lingers as I compose this blog, despite having no recall of the story—just His loving presence. My spirit brightens; its joy, boundless, a foretaste of what’s to come on the other side of my last breath.

The second dream of the light-skinned young couple heartens me. From the depths of my unconscious comes multifaceted harmony of their genders, of their blended voices, of their willingness to be in relationship, and of their shared faith and trust in Jesus. And on a deeper note, the dream suggests more healing of my racial prejudice, if not its removal altogether. I have wanted this for long years, but have been unable to extricate it from my shadow, it being imprinted since childhood.

And the Jesus hymn envelops my spirit in bliss. If such overtures, fleeting as they are, attest to realities far beyond our kin, what must eternal life be? And we’re all headed there, at least that’s my understanding, like bees swarming to the golden hive. In the meantime, tonight’s dreams remain to be learned from.