THAT FINAL EXAM DREAM [Maundy Thursday, 4-9-20]

Christ In Winter: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Times of Winter

THAT FINAL EXAM DREAM  [Maundy Thursday, 4-9-20]

For several years now I’ve had this dream: I realize that this is the day for the final exam, and I didn’t even know I was enrolled in the course. To make it worse, the professor is an old friend, Wally Mead. It’s embarrassing to tell a friend that you thought so little of his course that not only did you fail to come to class the whole semester, or read any of the assignments, but you didn’t even know you were enrolled!

The dream itself is easy enough to understand, especially in an old guy who is about to face the final exam for real. What has always puzzled me was why Wally was the teacher.

He was a professor of political science at Illinois State University when I was the Methodist campus minister there. We had a lot in common and were good friends. He was also an ordained Methodist minister. But I never would have been enrolled in a course with him.

Then suddenly, this morning, in the dark with coffee, I understood: In my dream, Wally is God, for he was the embodiment of the God I knew growing up, and remains in my psyche.

Wally was male, not just male, but masculine, tall, six-six, and broad-shouldered. He was good looking, but in a universal way, neither rugged nor pretty-boy. He was white. He was smart. He was theological. He was ordained. He was Methodist. He was single. [He finally married at 80, but this dream started earlier.] He had disciples—not only students, but Kleid, his dog, who followed him across campus to his classroom each day.

And, best of all… wait for it… he was the first person of the trinity! Yes, born a triplet, three boys from one womb at the same time, in what I’m sure their mother thought was a big bang. The famous—at the time—Cedar Rapids Triplets, their growing exploits followed in newspapers all over the land.

As befits the confusion of the trinity, it’s not easy to know when God is being God and when he [yes, I know, but this is my dream] is being Christ. So it was with Wally…

After he got his theology degree at Yale and pastored a while, Wally went to Duke to get his PhD in political science. While there, he participated in a sit-in for racial integration. He was arrested, thrown into a labor camp, beaten, make to work all day in broiling sun, was denied water, and almost died. He had his particular stigmata from that experience.

On one of those research trips that faculty people take in summer, he went to Algiers. On the ship he met a woman. They decided to have dinner at a waterfront café. Bad choice. When they got ready to leave, the owners demanded much more money than the menu specified. Wally and his companion pooled all their money but it wasn’t enough. They held the woman as hostage while Wally had to make his way through a dark and dangerous city to find some way after the banks and embassies and such were closed to get a lot of money and get back to the restaurant. It took a while. The woman probably thought he had just taken off, the way a lot of guys would. But not Wally. In fiction, that would be the start of a romance, but he never saw her again, just paid the ransom and set her free.

As the dream ends, I am walking across campus, on the way to take the exam, I am embarrassed to face Wally, having blown off his course the whole semester, not even knowing I was enrolled. But I am surprised that I am not much worried. I know that I have a much better chance of passing because he is a friend, a friend who is known to be kind and reliable. I also know that I’m not quite as unprepared as it looks. I talked with him enough through the years to have a fairly good idea what he thinks is important. I’ve even read his book [1], which is very difficult to understand, but at least I have an idea of what questions he might ask…

John Robert McFarland

1] Extremism and Cognition