asleep
This morning, in those achy hours between asleep and awake, I had a dream. I dreamt that a band of religion enthusiasts were visiting my family and my house. I was taking a nap in my bed, and awoke to find them coming in without a word to me, and rifling through all my stuff. I got angry. Not only were they very religious, faraway illogical missionary crazies, but they were rude. They did not say hello, or introduce themselves, and what made them think they could touch those things that were rightfully mine. I could have got out my shotgun, I was so mad. And to make matters worse, their leader and father figure came in wearing a sport coat and put his boot-clad feet up on my bed. I was angry. I started cursing them out. One of their brood was a young woman, presumably around my age, centered in a calm assurance of her beliefs that made me crazy. No matter how wrong I thought she was, she would not shed the air of superiority.
And to make matters worse, she was successful in making me feel shitty about my anger. To her, everything was fine.She insisted on accompanying me through the environment of my dream. We were in a kind of Mexican tourist town, were old ladies spent all day in the open air margarita factory, rimming margarita glasses with salt. There were stalls full of blow up palm trees and midway games, empty dance floors and hot sunshine making the shade dark.
As I spent more time with this religious invader-woman, I felt my anger slip away from me. I started to accept her for her as a person, and see past her religious perspective. But as I felt this anger slip away, a new anger came. This was anger with myself, for letting my shields down around her, and for accepting someone like her. I felt like I was betraying myself, befriending the enemy, and in doing so weakening my stance on the side of good, true, uncompromised, independent logic.But I couldn’t help it. The more time I spent, the less I wanted to hate her.
I woke up feeling as though my dream was trying to tell me something. That anger towards someone who seems to stand for something is less powerful than acceptance of the other. Acceptance and openness turns any animosity aimed at that subject against its originator. This internal process is more powerful than anything that could come from someone who is an enemy. Anger is owned by the angry, and doesn’t have to be poison to anyone but the angry. I suppose somehow I will need to know this in the coming days.