It's another one of those moments where I'm holed up in my younger son's room, trying to soothe him and get him to SETTLE DOWN, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!...you know, help him relax and drift off to sleep. I have my Treo with me, so I could pick up where I left off, reading more of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island. However, I decided to poke around on my Facebook profile and try to add a friend or two. Lo and behold, a couple of my friends responded right away and accepted my offer of friendship. *sniff* I feel so loved! Anyway...

Coming here to leave another little faint mark on the world, my mind started pondering and wandering, and it landed on my house. Not my house as in the place where I live right now, try to shelter my family, and pay the mortgage. No, I mean my dream house, the one I visit when I'm asleep. In my dreams, my house is always huge. Often it sits on the shore of a lake and looks like the Grand Hotel om Mackinac Island. It is then invariably not just my home, but home to my entire extended family. Most times, though, it looks about the size of my real house. However, in these dreams I almost always spend some time exploring The Other Rooms.

It's wierd. I must have some subconscious desire for more living space--although my real house is plenty big, thank you very much, I can't imagine trying to keep a bigger one clean. Anyway, in the dream house I usually come across a door I had almost forgotten about, and I go through it to a room--or, more often, an entire wing--of the house we never use. Sometimes it's storage; sometimes it's a bedroom suite; once it was a dormitory-style shower and bathroom two hundred feet long. whatever it is, though, it's always spotless and furnished, and I have it all to myself. I always end up saying to myself "Now, why on earth don't we use this terrific home theater / private gym / library/ indoor pool? It's been here all this time. We might as well make use of it." Then I wake up, and it's gone.

Sometimes, I really wish I could remember by dreams better.  I've noticed in the past week that there has been a recurring pattern in my dreams.  Several of them have taken place at my church, which of course doesn't look like my church, but it's mine nevertheless.  In these dreams, Michelle Obama arrives with a small group/family/retinue and sits in one of the front pews.  There's no fuss, no reaction to her being there.  It's like everything is normal.

Then one or more of the retinue get up and perform some silent ceremony, and everyone gets up to participate in it.  Last night, it was someone standing in the front like she was distributing the Eucharist, but instead she had a small bowl of water.  As each person came up, she would dip a finger in the water and touch the person's forehead.  Then the recipient would go back and sit down.  I remember in the dream asking the question "What is this all about?"  I never got an answer.

That's it, really.  I can't say why I'm having dreams like that.  I don't know if it's some deep-seated fear that this new administration will overreach so much that they will seek to supplant the Church and her Sacraments, or if it's some dread of liberals changing the Church in America so much that our Sacraments become meaningless symbols instead of real signs, or if it's just that the government is going to get its fingers into everything and everyone will just accept it.  I'm pretty sure the dreams are motivated by some fear, though.