At 6 A.M., I awoke with this moving dream:

It is Christmas night. My niece Beth has invited me for supper with her extended family and friends who have already arrived. Candlelight enhances the vaulted ceiling of the living room, its walls decorated with red velvet cutouts of the Nativity. Among the guests, a soprano, with a swarthy complexion, begins a carol and Beth joins her; their harmony enhances the God-within-us mystery, so palpable this night. In awe, we listen.

This dream lightened my spirit. Christmas night evokes the solemnity of the Christ-birth, suggests the dynamic of Incarnation ever at work in the universe, and reminds me of my end-time slowly dripping like an ice sickle onto the earthen path below.

In Jungian terms, my niece Beth corresponds to my positive shadow: gifts that I do not see in myself that await discovery and development. Happily, some have surfaced, thanks to long months of solitude and prayer since the November 2019 diagnosis of my terminal illness: deeper access to words—building blocks afforded from the Sacred within; deeper appreciation for exactly the way my life has unfolded; and deeper acceptance of my mortality and anticipation for Eternal Life.

Within my psyche, the images of candlelight and the vaulted ceiling speak to the hush of Sacred space enveloping everyone: Hearts flare in communion. The red velvet cutouts of the Nativity seem to come alive, as Beth and her guest, with the swarthy complexion, sing the carol. Fresh awareness dawns: We are an integral part of this story, its wordless joy plunging us into sweetness.

We are loved, unconditionally.