The Path and the Laodicean (Part 1)

I was standing in the familiar hangar where I’d spent two years of college (Aviation Maintenance Technology), watching somebody I knew who was talking to a former instructor. Catching the instructor’s eye, I stepped up and greeted “Bob”, who started chatting with me about my recent RN course and reminiscing about my earlier days in the aviation mechanics program.

I glanced around the hangar, looking at the amazing new developments, and questioned Bob about some of the other instructors, and about what had changed in the program. While we were chatting, I somehow found myself lying in a cot on the hangar floor—and across the hangar, I saw a friend who was also on a cot of sorts. Then in a moment, it seemed the hangar was half-full of cots, and students began streaming in to go to bed! By then I realized that I was in fact dreaming, because there was no way that the community college program had suddenly become a boarding-student program—and there was no way everybody could be living in that crowded, dusty hanger where we all did our work! It was nice to see all of the students praying, though, just as they went to bed…

Next I seemed to find myself walking down a Spokane street, apparently on my way home, but in an unusual area. The roads were snowy and icy, and I looked to the south and saw what I thought was a familiar road. I began jogging that direction, passing an icy intersection and peering curiously at the strangest-looking tractor I’d ever seen, which was plowing snow on a driveway. It was a tractor that had giant wheels on the front, and seemed to be impossibly agile. (For some reason though, I seemed to forget that I was in a dream.)

The street I was following went up a hill, and it was quite narrow, which led to me leaping up onto a snowy bank in order to avoid being struck by an oncoming vehicle. As I trudged along the bank, the snow disappeared and the road got strangely narrower, until finally it was a grassy foot trail. Looking off to my right, I saw a country house, and realized that I was no longer on a public road. Ahead of me were a man-made creek and some beautiful flower gardens. I realized I was trespassing, but thought I saw a familiar road that I could reach on the other side of the property. As I continued to cut across the creek and leap over the flower beds, I thought: It would be just my luck if these people owned a guard dog… Immediately I heard a vicious dog start barking, but was relieved to see it was chained to a nearby tree.

Pressing ahead, I was concerned that the residents in the house to my right would have seen me trespassing by now, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that I wasn’t in fact a hoodlum (even though my pockets seemed to be really bulging for some reason)! Surely I could explain my need to cut across their property—I was just trying to find my way to the other road.

Soon, though, it got more serious. Somehow, the lay of the land directed me to climb over a small rock wall, and when I got to the other side, I realized I was cooped in a small backyard. Next to me was a gigantic house that looked more like a resort, built partly into the ground against a cliff. My only way forward to the road I was seeking was to climb another rock wall of sorts—a wall that was perhaps 50 feet high. I started quickly ascending the wall, using the jagged rocks as footholds. Then I heard some noise from inside the giant house next to me, and mused: Next I’ll probably hear a gunshot while I’m trying to get over this wall. But as I reached the upper section of the wall, I saw it was tilting backwards due to my weight, and I grabbed hold of a metal railing just in time to stop myself and the entire wall from falling over. I realized then that the “wall” was actually a huge plastic overlay, but I couldn’t climb over the final section and get over the metal fence at the top without the entire wall overlay crashing under my weight. Not wanting to risk property damage, I seemed to care less for my life, but I sent up a quick prayer before letting go and falling back down to the yard below.

To be continued…