I Had a Bad Dream

I felt a touch of weariness as I stared at the request form on my desk at the jail recently. A woman had seemingly requested every item that could conceivably come from the chaplaincy department. A bible, correspondence courses, bookmarks, address book, diary, notebook, colouring sheets, word searches, a rosary, calendar, inspirational verses, pencil crayons, stamped envelopes… She almost ran out of room on the form. Near the end, almost as an afterthought, she wrote, “Oh yeah, and I would also like to talk to a chaplain. I’ve been going through some hard things I want someone to pray for me.” I grabbed as many of the items as we had and trudged off to the women’s unit.

Her file said she was thirty, but she looked fifteen. Small, shy, sheepish, fidgety. Eye contact was minimal. “You said you wanted to see a chaplain…” I began, but before I could get any further she blurted out, “Yeah, I need you to pray for me cuz I had a bad dream. It’s come over and over again, it’s like a big guy standing over my bed and he reaches out and grabs hold of me and squeezes me and I can’t get away. It’s really scary. Sometimes I wake up and it takes me a while to realize that it was a bad dream and, well, you know I want it to stop.” She looked at me expectantly. My turn, I guess.

I inquired about her past, whether there was any history of trauma. As if it was possible that there wasn’t. Sexually abused as a child, raped repeatedly as a teenager and young adult. An entirely predictable and devastating narrative of familial breakdown, social chaos, and grinding poverty and addiction weaving its way through everyone in her orbit. She relayed all of this with utter detachment. She may as well have been reading off a grocery list.

To say that it was heartbreaking would be an understatement, obviously. But aside from the deep, guttural sadness I often feel when I hear stories like this, I also felt just a bone-weary fatigue. I would surely pray for her. That’s the job, after all. But prayer can feel utterly useless at times. And the sad stories just pile up. So much chaos, despair, addiction, violence, rage, sorrow and pain. “How long, O Lord?” is the prayer that seems most natural to offer. But this woman was not looking for lament. She was looking for deliverance.

I asked about her religious background. Went to a Roman Catholic church on the reserve. Believed in Jesus but also in “Creator.” “I’m good with both,” she said, half a smile on her lips. “You can pray to whoever.” Indeed. And so, I leaned forward to pray for her. I wanted to take her hands in mine, but we’re not supposed to touch the inmates. I prayed for many of the things I usually pray for. Comfort, peace, strength, courage. But these can easily feel uncomfortably safe. A way to get out of the room quickly. And so, I also prayed that Jesus would banish the nightmares and bring healing to unresolved trauma. I prayed that he would reveal himself to this young woman—a wounded child, in so many ways!—as a good shepherd, a strong warrior, and a lover of her soul.

What I wanted to pray was, “God damn, do something! Fix something. Judge something. Consign these terrible realities to the pit of hell, never to return. Christ have mercy. Or vengeance.”

I said my “amen.” The young woman smiled at me, said a bright “Thanks” and bounced back up to her cell with her armload of supplies. Maybe she was hopeful the prayer would “work.” Maybe she’d heard dozens of prayer just like mine and was more interested in her colouring sheets.

I recently listened to a podcast where two pastors were talking about some of the unanticipated challenges of ministry, the things seminary doesn’t prepare you for, the things you don’t see coming when you start out on the journey. Or, even if you do see them coming on a theoretical level, you have no idea what they will feel like. One of them said something that resonated. “I didn’t understand how emotionally exhausting it would be to be in near constant proximity to pain.” Yeah. Absolutely.

Stories from the jail would be on the extreme end of the spectrum, but pain shows up in so many different ways. Death, doubt, relational conflict, institutional decay, anger at the church, illness, loneliness, the inability to navigate social norms, poverty, addiction… All of these and more find their way to the pastor’s door at some point. Sometimes they don’t patiently come one at a time, ensuring to leave enough space to process. Very few of these do I have any power to change or fix in any deep or lasting way. Pastors are by no means the only people whose work puts them in proximity to pain, but it of course weighs heavy.

In a few days, I’ll be heading out on a three-month sabbatical. I’m looking forward to this for all obvious reasons. It will be great to get a chance to recharge, recalibrate, rest, reflect, pray. I’m looking forward to going on a long walk in Portugal and Spain, and attending a few conferences. I’m looking forward to time with friends. I’m looking forward to getting off the treadmill of the next sermon, next talk, next essay, next presentation… But as I left the jail yesterday, I thought, I’m really looking forward to a break from the proximity to pain.

And yet even as the thought entered my head, it was followed by another. To be human is to be in proximity to pain. Not always to the same extent, thank God. But pain is part of the human condition. Sharing it, bearing it, carrying it, doing what we can to alleviate it, pointing beyond it with conviction and hope—this is the task of being a follower of Jesus. We have all kinds of ways of avoiding pain. We kill it with medication, we dull it with substances, we avoid it with entertainment, we wave in its direction with prayer. But it is part of the journey of being a person on this planet. There is no sabbatical from the human condition.

Having said that, there is more than pain in this world. So much more. There is joy and pleasure and surprise and delight. There is faith, hope, and love. There is mercy and there is grace. There are things we could never see coming. There is a God who has entered the pain of our story and wrought redemption. There is life and life eternal. There is a new heaven and a new earth, where sorrow and sighing flee away. Where bad dreams and the all-too-real experiences that give rise to them are consigned to the pit of hell, never to return. Thanks be to God.

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I haven’t yet decided if I will be taking a full sabbatical from this blog or not. My best guess is that posting will at the very least be more sporadic over the next few months, but who knows what might come bubbling up once a bit of time has elapsed. We will see. Thanks for your patience. And thanks, as always for reading. It’s a gift to have companions on the journey.