Sunday morning, I had a very vivid dream. There was a stone church that was erected on the crossroads of a busy highway close to my childhood home, and everybody was taking shelter in it under a roiling, dark sky that threatened everything under it. However, as we passed through the wooden doors, intricately carved with angelic reliefs placed in the portals of the doors, I saw the faces of the angels were beautiful, but not in the way that we imagine angelic beauty to be. Instead of the beauty of purity and innocence that we ascribe to religious beauty, these faces looked like the Instagram-filters that had been applied to otherwise normal faces; 2-dimensional, superficial, with plastic surgery and makeup. As we got ushered into the church, the clergy that was guiding us to take shelter in the darkened halls also exhibited the same false beauty that seemed to ascribe the angelic reliefs on the door… painted, sculpted faces in designer clothing, with no substance beneath. Beautiful people whom I wouldn’t have trusted to pour me a glass of water much less entrust them with my spiritual salvation. In fact, as we were being ushered in, I was grappling with the choice of whether I wanted to stay in the church, or take my chances outside in the storm.
This isn’t the first time the imagery of a church has manifested in my dreams. Throughout the nights, when the church manifests it’s presence in my mind, it’s always in unusual locations… in the basement of tenement like structures deep underground, or in crystalline grotto filled caves. Other times, it’s in the misty locations of the mind that you would usually ascribe to churches being located, in beautiful city centers and countryside of the landscapes of the mind. This location was closest to my childhood home in my mind, the area it was situated now developed, now commercialized into something other then the empty slate of imagination that manifested in my dream.
The biggest take away from the dream from the appearance of the symbolism that manifested ascribed to the church. I was surprised to see reliefs of angelic faces carved into the wood, but warped with the appearance of an Instagram filter.. smooth and sculpted facial features; manmade constructs instead of the divine examples of beauty ascribed to. It’s as if our interpretation of divine beauty was corrupted by the modern interpretation, and thus the church symbolized false icons of perfection, a corrupted sanctuary that offered shelter in a false lie.
The people that I saw who were with me were locals, being ushered in by an all female clergy that had similar styles of appearance and dress to the angelic reliefs. It’s as if they were trying to emulate these impossible standards of electronic emulation of beauty, only to offer an empty, hollow end, with perhaps a fate worst then if we had been left out to the raw, un-tempered truth of the storm.
The storm, not-withstanding, offered everything the church wasn’t. It was dark, ferocious, infinitely stronger then the stone walls that would have failed to protect the hollow truth of the corrupted algorithms that power social media, and leaving a hollow existence in it’s wake. The storm offered the opportunity to face the truth of everything that could be fully, and either survive having been made stronger, or have a chance to redo it in another life, another opportunity to make amends for an otherwise false existence.
In finishing up, the dream leaves many things to ponder. The appearance and location of the church, so close to my childhood home now overrun with commercialized stores, a calm, authentic past location now overrun with commercialized, artificial influences of today. The angelic faces, a well known symbol of religion, now corrupted by modern ideals of beauty presenting the corruption of the sacred by superficuality. The clergy themselves are modeled in the image of these filtered icons, a true disconnect between the external appearance and the internal substance.
The storm, in contrast, offers a confrontation with reality, unrelenting, harsh, but authentic. Unlike social media, there are no filters, no veneer, but only the raw experience of facing something real. It gives the ability to embrace change, challenge, and pain, and truth over the comfort of illusions. It gives the ability to pursue something genuine, even if it means enduring the storms fury.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope it leaves something to consider.
Lucio V.