Good morning church family,

Feeling cagey and exposed, he looked down to see if his arms were tied to the chair. They weren’t. But still, he couldn’t lift them. He couldn’t even make a fist.

His freshly-shorn hair lay in clumps on the floor and the faint smell of shaving cream was in the air. His bald head itched and stung from the tight passes made with the straight razor. Wind from the fan mounted on the wall behind, blew over his wet head; sending a chill down his spine.

Was it a barber’s chair under him? He would have been glad for a mirror to offer a view of his surroundings, but the wall in front of him was bare. Behind him stood a man smelling of tonic. He thought he saw a white coat out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, the fingers and thumbs of two hands were pressing firmly all about his shaven head. The pressing was more probing than therapeutic; the work of a doctor and not a masseuse. Then a dialogue between the white-coated man and an unseen assistant began. “Some cratering indicative of neurosis,” the man said in a cold, analytical tone; his assessment finding an echo in the assistant’s scratching on a clipboard. “Strong indications of megalomania in the frontal cortex,” he continued. “No signs of psychopathy. Hmmm…that’s odd,” the man said in a whisper. The man’s hands suddenly leapt off of his head as though it had turned white hot and he heard the sounds of feet shuffling backward.

And there the dream ended. Casey Freiling woke up with a start, his pajama shirt wet with sweat; his mind alert and racing. It was the third such time he’d dreamt this exact dream in the last two weeks. Like Pharaoh in Egypt long ago or Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, he knew intuitively that the dream was not the normal nocturnal scribblings of the subconscious. No, this had to be a vision. Casey was determined to learn the interpretation.

He started with his church. Casey had been a believer for over twenty years; coming to Christ as a young man and serving his local church faithfully ever since. He never missed a Sunday, always tithed the first fruits of his paycheck, was forever working his way through a stack of recommended texts, and kept his church’s code of ethics as well as he could.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” was his pastor’s reply. “It’s probably something you ate. Many a ‘vision’ you hear about today is probably nothing more than indigestion.” The pastor was trying to be lighthearted about it but Casey wasn’t joining in the chuckling. “Either way, Casey; just keep your mind on God’s Word and trust in Him.”

Unsatisfied with this processed counsel, Casey sought out a couple other leaders in the church. They listened intently and even went so far as to cross their arms, hold their chins in hand, and furrow their brows in feigned concern. But their counsel was little different from the pastor’s. “Hard to tell, Casey,” one of them said. “Maybe it’s a riff on something you saw on TV or something.” The other picked up on something Casey had said, “You said you woke up sweating through your shirt, right? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some pretty wild fever dreams in my day.”

Casey wanted to push back by reminding them that the dream had come in triplicate, that the dream was nothing like anything he’d seen on any screen, and that he hadn’t been ill in months. But he despaired of finding wisdom in either of the men and, instead, just shook his head in time with theirs. “Alright, I guess I’ll see you next Sunday,” Casey said.

He really didn’t want to, but Casey’s next approach was to lay out a little cash and see a Christian counselor. “What do you think the dream means, Mr. Freiling?” the counselor had asked.

“I have no idea,” Casey responded, slightly agitated. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Well, that’s what I’m aiming to do. Our dreams, you see,” the counselor sat back and brought his hands together at the fingertips, “are often us trying to talk to ourselves in notions, pictures, or ideas. I imagine you have the interpretation within your own heart and mind, Mr. Freiling. I strongly suggest you try and talk it out with me and bring it into the open.”

Casey endured the session and paid the receptionist, but left as frustrated as ever. He next scanned Amazon for titles that seemed promising. He even ordered one, but he’d hardly finished the first chapter when he knew its prospects were poor. Next, he scanned the internet for charismatic churches in the area; hoping to find one that might have someone on staff for this sort of thing. He found one about an hour away and made an appointment with someone purporting to be the church’s “Chief Armor Bearer”. But the meeting started with Casey being asked to fill out a spiritual inventory that read more like a sexual confessional. The man seemed kind and earnest enough, but the whole thing only served to further muddy the waters.

Instead of having the dream recede into the blessed nether regions of his subconscious, it only took up a more prominent position in his thinking. It was rare for Casey’s mind to dwell on anything other than the dream when it wasn’t otherwise occupied. He relived the dream often and often sought out means and methods for understanding it. He’d read as much as he could, watched videos, sought counsel, ventured out to the gnarly fringes of Christendom, and even tried something called “inductive journaling”. But nothing brought relief.

Then one day he happened to mention the dream to a coworker. It was an unguarded moment for Casey, who had worked for years to keep his work relationships as professional and impersonal as possible. But maybe it was the fact that he and Brandon were walking and not sitting and talking, that made the casual exchange possible. Whatever it was, Casey had taken the opportunity to share his dream after Brandon described a recent visit to his barber.

“Woah, Case,” Brandon said, kicking pebbles off the paved pathway as they walked, “that’s messed up man. But that doesn’t sound like a barber to me. I think that’s some phrenology stuff you got going on there.”

Casey had never heard of phrenology before. Later that night, he looked it up. He learned that there was once a branch of science that operated on the theory that a person’s character and mental faculty could be determined by examining the size and shape of his skull. While the practice of phrenology seemed perfectly laughable to Casey, it did seem eerily similar to what the man with the white coat was attempting to do in the dream.

“Should I go online and try and find a phrenologist somewhere?” Casey thought to himself. “Am I neurotic like the guy said in the dream? Am I a megalomaniac? Is there something wrong in my head? Should I ask my doctor to schedule an MRI or something? What does this dream mean?” Casey’s mind began to spin with questions and wild suppositions. But then came the moment of grace.

“Why haven’t you asked Me?” came the question from the voice he hadn’t heard since he first visited the altar two decades earlier.

“I’m sorry, I – – I suppose I didn’t know that I could.”

“When are you going to get out of that chair, Casey? For too long now, you’ve been allowing everything and everyone to make out your life’s pathways for you. It’s silly, child. No one else really knows you or the plans I have for you.” The Lord paused and Casey reveled in the wonderful communion for a moment. “It’s like what I had Solomon say, ‘in all your ways, acknowledge Me and I will make your paths straight.’”

Casey reflexively dropped to his knees and, with tears in his eyes, begged forgiveness. He was forgiven indeed and raised out of the “chair” to stand with Christ on his own two feet. But the best thing for Casey was that the prayer time never had an ending “amen”.

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to seek and find, ask and receive, knock and have doors opened to us. It’s going to be a blessed time of encouragement and renewal – and I can’t wait to share in it with each of you! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

From the time I was a little boy until the day I left home for college, I fell asleep most every night listening to a recording of some kind. The first bedroom I can remember sleeping in – the one I shared with two of my brothers – had a dresser with a record player and speakers sitting on top of it. At night, my brothers and I would pull on our pajamas, brush our teeth, and pile into our little, upstairs room. I would climb in the top bunk and jaw with Joel and Josh until either Mom or Dad came in to read to us. We’d hear a chapter out of Great Expectations, The Red Badge of Courage, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or The Incredible Journey and then say “goodnight” as the chair was tucked back in under the desk and the lamp’s orange glow was clicked to black. It was then that my brothers and I would decide which record to play. We’d sometimes listen to music – Hooked on Classics was a favorite and I distinctly remember borrowing a copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album from our Jamaican neighbors across the street for a few weeks one autumn – but most of the time we listened to comedy records. My dad had a pile of Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart albums that he’d let us listen to. We would carefully – very, very carefully – load the record through the spindle and onto the platter, start the motor, and place the needle in the outermost groove. I can’t tell you how many times I heard Cosby tell of the time he had his tonsils taken out or Newhart do his driving instructor routine. Despite the incredible storytelling and infectious sense of humor captured on these recordings– I never made it to the end of any side. I’ve always had a knack for laying back, blinking out, and falling fast asleep.

Years later, when our parents moved the family to Vermont and rented a large house with bedrooms enough for all of us, we graduated from record players to little boombox stereos that played cassettes or CDs. It was during these years that our bedtime listening really flourished. Whether it was through gifts given at Christmas or birthdays, purchases we made with money we’d earned, or donations made from church family and friends, us kids created a sizable listening library. I remember that we had a couple of shoeboxes filled with all kinds of selections. There were several episodes of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion in there. There was also a condensed version of The Civil War read by Ken Burns himself. There were recordings of old radio broadcasts starring Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. We also had all kinds of fables, legends, swashbuckling tales, and sweeping epics to choose from. There was one overly theatrical production of Robin Hood that we were all particularly fond of. In addition to these studio recordings, our collection boasted a bunch of oddball stuff as well. Tape recordings of a backwoods Vermonter giving his hilarious reflections on flatlanders, lectures of a college history professor, and even some captivating presentations made by a renowned cryptozoologist. We acquired an ear for it all and ended each day by picking something out of one of the shoeboxes, crawling into bed, and pressing play.

I don’t know what impact, if any, all those twilight hours had on my spiritual formation as a young man. I’m sure it wasn’t nothing but I doubt it moved the needle very much in either direction. That said, there was one recording that I listened to dozens and dozens of times that I’m certain the Lord used mightily in my life.

I remember it being a creamy white cassette with labels affixed to either side that were peeling at the edges. Typewritten on these labels was the title of the recording: “’The Pineapple Story’ by Otto Koning”. The tape was a recording of a live presentation of a talk that Koning gave to a church somewhere. Koning and his wife were Dutch missionaries who’d committed their lives to serving a small community of native peoples in the jungles of Irian Jaya. Koning happened to be a fantastic storyteller who was blessed with an earnestness that was unsullied by pretention or affectation. He also had a wonderfully winsome sense of humor. “The Pineapple Story” tape was easy to listen to; Koning’s Dutch accent, staccato delivery, and dry wit really drew me into the story. The tale centered on a pineapple garden that Koning had planted on the little missionary compound they lived on. Mrs. Koning ran a clinic and Otto spent most of his time learning the language and working on a translation of the Bible into the tribal tongue. But the villagers that they lived among were chronic thieves who stole nearly everything the missionaries had. Koning tells funny stories of women wearing can openers as necklaces and men having fountain pens slid through holes in their noses. But over time, all this stealing and thieving began to create real resentment toward the villagers in Koning’s heart; stirring up an unhealthy anger and frustration within him. And the thing that frosted Koning the most was the brazen and unabashed pilfering of all his pineapples.

I remember Koning confessing to his audience that he had traveled all the way from the Netherlands to Papua New Guinea to share the good news of Jesus Christ but that he’d ended up spending most of his time fighting with the people over pineapples. His missionary life became one of threatening the people, bargaining with them, withholding goods and services, standing guard, and speaking all kinds of invective in an Irian Jayan tongue. It was both brutal and comical. But everything changed in both Otto’s heart and in the village, when the Lord spoke to Koning while attending a church service on furlough. The Lord used the words of the preacher to convict Koning of his having taken offense at what he saw as the violation of his right to those pineapples and to encourage him to give the pineapple garden to God.

There were many nights that I’d be lying there in bed, staring up at the ceiling, my imaginings of Koning’s tale being projected on the dimly moonlit canvas above, when I’d suddenly hear the tape to go to static and then snap to a stop. I’d quickly prop myself up on one elbow, eject the cassette, flip it over, and press play again. I many times listened to the entire, hour-long message. I so loved hearing Koning tell of how light his heart became once he gave everything to God – his life, his ministry, his time, efforts, can openers, fountain pens, and pineapples. I remember him telling of waving cheerfully to all the thieving villagers doing their grocery shopping in his garden while praying that the Lord would watch over the produce he’d given Him. The conclusion of the story is too long to be retold here, but it involves the villagers believing that Koning had become a Christian through the whole ordeal, believing that God was judging them for taking His pineapples, and the jungle coming to finally believe in the saving love of Jesus. It so blessed my heart! When the message was over, I’d sometimes have a hard time falling asleep.

The Lord was working in the garden of my own heart during those evening hours; preparing the soil for what He wanted to plant and nurture in my life. I didn’t know it then but some of the lessons that Koning was teaching would one day find powerful and needful application in my own life and ministry. There were nights back then in Vermont when I could have been little Samuel hearing the Lord calling his name at night in Eli’s house. The only difference for me, was that God’s voice came through the speakers of a Sony cassette player and not the air. But either way, I’m glad I heard it in heavenly stereo.

We’re looking forward to gathering in the morning that we might tend to the things of the Lord while having the Lord tend to matters of heart and soul. I can’t wait for the harvest supper of faith that we’re sure to enjoy! Isn’t it grand to be a Christian? May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate