My Dream

Linus and Jaana are my siblings, we all are orphans. I hear them cry from around the corner, I run looking for them. As I get there, I face one of my childhood sights: a couple of nuns are herding a bunch of uniformed girls from the Catholic school (they looked at us, wild working class children, as evil beings to be avoided; even as children we were very aware of that). They are at the entrance of a dark, square shaped tunnel. Linus and Jaana are inside crying after trying to run away from the nuns, while them, nuns, try to block the exit perhaps involuntarily forcing them further inside.

"Don't you see they don't want?! Leave them in peace!!" - I shout to them angrily as I get nearer, running.

The nuns look bewildered and don't react. I run pass them and enter the tunnel. After a short while, the tunnel turns sharp into a dead end corner. The walls are wet and made of irregular dark rock, it's pretty dark there. Linus and Jaana are squatting afraid in a corner. I get to them and tell them in a soft voice "I'm here to take care of you, don't worry". I get them each under one arm and turn to go outside again.

As we approach the nuns at the entrance, I tell them reproachfully: "Shame on you! Don't you see they didn't want to?" -I continue, talking now to a preach that has appeared in the dream suddenly, out of nowhere- "That's the way you Catholics..."

The preacher interrupts me and starts speaking with his preacher and condescending tone.

I snap back readily: "No, will you listen to me? No, come on, please, listen, I want to tell you something" -I try to stop him, but he is not even listening to that, so I start to feel frustrated and hopeless while he continues with his blank preacher rhetorics.

"NO! LISTEN TO ME!!!" -I insist- "I want to talk to you. I want you to listen and to answer to what I say, not anything else. I'll speak for one minute and then you speak for one minute. Now, can you listen to me for one minute? Please?"

The preacher stops his speech suddenly and looks at me, almost for the first time. I resume trying to make my point, now in a softer voice, sincerely wanting to communicate with the man.

"You could say I'm a Christian, I share many of Jesus' values, I'm not your enemy. I want to talk. Listen, you Catholics won't ever listen, have no empathy, do you? Is that the way you make children get nearer God? You hold and grab them, and carry them no-matter-what right to His feet, and then just drop them there? Don't you see that in doing so, you destroy the true joy of approaching God: the conscious steps towards Him, the awe of approaching his mystery engaged in a personal search. The process, you people! Have you lost it? You spoil it all!"


Then, I suddenly wake up and wonder what the fuck that was.