Think back to the most terrifying moment of your life. You probably remember exactly where you were, who you were with, how old you were, and some surrounding events. For many people, it probably happened when they were quite young and involved an animal, water, or some indescribably disgusting food. But I think one thing most people can agree on is that at the moment in their life when they were most afraid... dramatic pause... they were awake.
I, on the other hand, was asleep.
The year was 2009. The day was May fourth, and the time was probably one-something in the morning. I was in my church. The building looked completely different than it does in real life, but I think some of the people were the same. I’m not sure, but that’s not really important. It was a normal Sunday morning.
Upstairs, wandering around, was a man no one knew. No one had seen him before, no one knew his name. All we knew was that we were all afraid of him. Why? Because he was blind.
Now, I realize that blindness is a ridiculous reason to be afraid of someone; in fact, it’s kind of a reason not to be afraid of them. But this is my dream world, and it typically doesn’t make sense. Plus our fear of his blindness is a critical part of the dream.
So everyone gets scared because this strange guy is blind, and we all run downstairs away from him. Once everyone has gathered to cower in fear, we notice that he’s taken some captives: two helpless girls, about eleven years old. There were plenty of able-bodied men (with perfect vision) downstairs in the church, and all of them had the same idea: we need to save ourselves from this super scary guy! In fact, everyone had that exact plan. Save yourselves, an old blind man with no weapons might hurt you.
The church people began calling other people to come get them out of the church before they got hurt. I think someone may have told the guy upstairs that he should let the girls go, but no one actually did anything to help them. Everyone was afraid of getting hurt.
The blind man took the girls out onto a balcony that hung over the sidewalk in front of the building. He started threatening to throw them over. What did the church people do? “Don’t do it! That’s bad! Well, I guess there’s nothing we can do. He might hurt us if we go up there.”
And so the screaming ensued. The girls screamed as loudly as they could for someone to help them, but it was too late. Suddenly the screaming stopped, and then one girl started to scream again. Only one. The other girl was dead on the ground in front of the church.
Everyone downstairs quickly began to panic. First off, they didn’t want one single man with no weapons to somehow hurt them all. Second, they didn’t want people to see a dead girl lying on the sidewalk or the church might get a bad reputation. But they had nothing to worry about, because the cars showed up right then. Whoever they had called to come rescue us had just showed up with enough cars to transport the entire church body, which was quite large.
Everyone started to rush out of the building, but I couldn’t leave. I just stood there screaming “Why didn’t someone help that girl?! There’s still one up there, why don’t some of you men go help her?!” I was assured by my fellow church-goers that it was far too dangerous, and that I would soon be killed if I didn’t rush out of the church with everyone else. Between the horrifying predicament of the two young girls and the complete chaos going on downstairs, I could do nothing but stand still. I started to breathe faster and my head began to spin. I felt a panic attack coming on and I knew I would soon pass out and be carried out of the church to a car, which would take me to a “safe” destination. Then there would be no one to help the girl upstairs.
This is the part where I was terrified. Terrified for the girl, terrified that I would do the wrong thing, terrified that I would be trampled to death by a bunch of crazed hypocrites. Then my eyes shot open, and I was covered in sweat and panting... kind of like in a movie. I was awake, and it was 1:40 AM.
Now, if you ask me, which you have done involuntarily by reading my blog, this dream makes a pretty nifty metaphor. If you happen to attend church regularly, I’m sure you’ve heard non-Christians referred to as “blind”. In this case, the blind party (the stranger dude) will represent the secular media. The little girls represent pre-teens and teenagers in the church, usually around junior high age. The church people represent church people, and physical death represents spiritual death.
Unfortunately, this is not a very unusual case. The secular media (blind man) comes casually strolling in, and people scatter like cockroaches in the fear that they could be its next victim. But the young girls who just want to fit in don’t know any better, so they don’t run. They get caught up in what they think is cool and popular, and before long they don’t know how to get back out.
Meanwhile, the church people are poking at the blind people with yardsticks saying “Hey, leave them alone, please” because they don’t want to get too close and get hurt themselves. What they don’t realize it that if they’re 100% for real about their Christianity, no one is just going to snatch it away from them unless they forfeit it. Sometimes the stronger Christians have to put themselves in unpleasant situations to help out those who are weaker.
Since their fellow Christians are either too scared to do anything or too self-absorbed to be concerned with anything but saving themselves, the kids are left confused and helpless, until they reach an unfortunate end-- spiritual death. Before long, the kids who represent Christians to their unsaved friends (the girl lying in front of the church) are no different from their friends (spiritually dead), and more kids start getting the impression that they’re on their way to heaven no matter what kind of sin they’re involved in. Those kids become our adults, and the cycle continues until the whole world is on its way to hell.
Before you say “You’re being accusatory!” and stop reading my blog, think about this: The secular media is more than willing to tell teenagers they’re being uncool, but Christians are too scared of offending someone to say they’re being un-Christian. So why is the secular media more confident than the average Christian?
