The 39th Revelation

The 39^th Revelation

I turn 39 this Sunday. In a lot of ways this is a relief. For the past 8 years many people who don’t know me have presumed that I must be in my 40s. I have thought about why this would be. Do I look old? Am I wearing “mom” jeans? Am I acting crotchety? Upon analysis I quickly debunk my own presuppositions. The reality is that I act generally immature, I have a fantastic wardrobe and I barley have a wrinkle. So, why all this age inflation or rather, why does anyone care?

When I was a child, my mother would not tell anyone her age. She didn’t even let me see her driver’s license out of fear of me revealing her birth year to those she entertained. This mystery was extra frustrating for me since my mother and I share a Birthday. I always wanted to know how old she turned on the day that she birthed me. The secret was disclosed on her 40^th Birthday. My father surprised her with a used 1978 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. My father was from the generation that loved Caddys the way that “Go Green” urbanites love Priuses today. My mother, on the other hand, was not a fan. Wait that was an understatement; my mother, upon removing her blindfold and viewing her new set of wheels, lost her mind. She did not want the car. She also did not want to turn 40 and have it exposed to her children who might go and tell someone. She wanted her youth. She wanted it to last forever.

A similar car that my mother was given. I drove it into high school. The engine would die on left hand turns.

I had a dream several months ago. It was one of those dreams that stay with you and wind themselves around your waking consciousness. The details of the dream are long and arduous and I believe the many parts deserve their own examination. However, the events culminate with Rob and me driving up to our church, which was not really our church, to find a music festival-size stage taking up most of the courtyard area, which was no longer there. U2 music was blaring and there was an extremely thin middle-age blonde woman performing what appeared to be karaoke on the giant platform. A screen behind her displayed all sorts of beautiful roses. I was struck by the floral scenery and grabbed my camera to capture the moment. The woman jumped off the stage and threw me against a wall. She pinned me and began to angrily insist that I don’t call her beautiful unless I kiss her. This all felt very real to me, so out of fear I closed my eyes and puckered my lips. The blonde was squeezing my neck and I gasped for breath. Then, I felt her tongue touching between my outstretched lips. I opened my eyes and found that the woman had transformed into a huge yellow snake that was attempting to shove its forked tongue into my mouth. I woke with a jolt and a cry for Mary.

I have spent months considering the meaning of this part of my dream. Carl Jung says everyone in your dream is you, or rather a symbol of you or your shadow material. What I have concluded is that the snake is symbolic of the process of my healing and that the woman is representative of the person who I do not want to be and that person is my mother.  Let me clarify, my mother is not all bad but she has made choices in her life to not acknowledge and attempt to mend her own brokenness and through this caused a lot of damage to those around her including her children and although not recognized, she has lived a life full of anger, fear, and lonely resentment.  The blonde in my dream denotes my mother’s subconscious hold on me and the snake (an image of healing) represents my ultimate choice in life: Do I resist the not so pretty truth that I too can easily become angry, fearful and lonely or do I go ahead and kiss it, make friends with it and call it beautiful and through this find wholeness and health.

A Franciscan priest named Richard Rohr has written at length about the first and second halves of life. He states that an individual has to experience a great failure or loss to get catapulted into the second half of life. This is equated to the death of the false Self and through this death an individual, if appropriate steps are taken, can gain fulfillment and develop into a whole and content human being. Rohr is explicit in saying that the first half is not bad and is definitely necessary. However, how one manages their entrance into middle age can mean the difference between, as Erickson put it, ego integrity and despair.  Obviously my mother’s birth year antics are not an example of entering wisely into the second half of life.

As the day that I turn 39 approaches, I have been reflecting on a passage from Revelation. It talks about those who participate in the first resurrection will not be impacted by the, “second death.” It is my hope that as I enter into middle age I will continue to be resurrected from my first death so that I may gain not just years but wisdom and that I will gracefully accept the end of my existence from this realm when the next half has been played out. I might even buy a Cadillac and a pet snake.