Waiting to be fed

I fell asleep on the couch last night. This is always a mistake, especially when both S and I fall asleep in the family room watching TV. We don't wake up until 1:00 in the morning, and are immediately reminded that the joints of a 42 year old are not the same as the joints of a 22 year old.

Anyway, last night a dream woke me up, and I remember it enough that I'm still thinking of it today. I know it is a product of all of the thoughts I've been having lately about church, but it was interesting to me what my brain did with my rambles.

I was in church -- not my church, because the basement area looked different. It was a social hall with an attached commercial style kitchen. The kitchen and the social hall were connected by a door and by a window. The window, which was small -- only about 2 feet x 2 feet -- was used to pass filled plates from the kitchen to the social hall.

Someone -- someone who had made a terrible mistake -- had put me in charge of a dinner. The meal was ready -- lasagna and salad, but nothing was happening. I went out to the social hall to check on arrangements. The tables, which were round, were set up in the room. A group of men was standing in the room, far away from the kitchen, having a meeting. They were older, dressed in very nice suits, looking stern and forbidding. I went up to the head of this group and told him that dinner was ready -- we needed to get these people served. He just frowned.

I turned around to go back into the kitchen and saw of a line of people standing at the window. The line was winding its way around the wall of the social hall. All of these people were waiting for dinner.

Back into the kitchen I went, trying to get it all organized. There was plenty of help in the kitchen. The food was ready, but no one was doing anything. "All of these people are in line; we need to fill up the plates." Nothing.

I woke up and said, "Yuk. Somebody made me cook at church." Nightmare.

Seriously, I do find it interesting what came together in my dream.

We have all this food, we have all the help we need, we have the means to make it happen, and yet here we stand with a line of people waiting to be fed. As I've thought about this dream today, it doesn't remind me of real food, but instead of metaphorical bread -- we have it in abundance -- the Word of God for the people of God. We just need to give it to the people who are hungry for it.