For a while now I have had a practice of noticing my dreams when I wake up; I try to jot down a few notes as soon as I can because I know that the more active I get the further away the dream story moves. I don’t do this because I’m trying to interpret the future or find hidden meaning in someone’s behavior. I do it because it teaches me something valuable about how I feel about things, or where I have growth opportunities. Dreaming someone acts a certain way doesn’t mean they have done that or that they will, but it might teach me something about how I feel about myself relative to that person or that kind of situation.

Last night I dreamt of a powerful man, not someone I know, not a character from film or books, but I could tell it was someone with power, influence; there was something about his child. He had done wrong and the consequence was upsetting to this powerful person. In response he was punishing another child – in my dream it was awful. I don’t like to watch scary movies or read disturbing accounts because I don’t want those images in my head. So I don’t want to describe the terribleness of this pain, but I felt it. I was there in the scene, I was trying to work out some kind of a conflict, and in my dream I was sick with the pain I was witnessing. I woke up heartbroken. I jotted down enough so that I could capture the story and the feeling and then I spent the day going about my business but reflecting and wondering, what was that about, why was I feeling that?

And as I moved about the normalcy of my day, the profound privilege of safety surrounding me, the comfortable distancing of my consumer choices, the trust I have that we mostly all want to care for and love the vulnerable around us I was struck by my naiveté. I can say these things and believe these things and it costs me nothing to feel right, but there is suffering in the world. Unjust suffering meted out on innocents who can be ill used precisely because they are vulnerable and innocent.

Maybe it is this season of advent, waiting in a dark world for light that has helped me to feel this uncomfortable truth. It isn’t just someone else who is making a choice that causes harm, or an unreasonable, unfeeling monster who doesn’t care. I make choices in my life about how I spend my money, where I spend my time, how I get from one place to another and there are consequences not just for me but for people who might be a whole world away, or just down the block. Am I thinking about how what feels right and good and necessary to me might cause unjust pain to someone else. Someone I have never met, someone I may never see. But someone who should not have to hurt because of how I choose to show up or not.

I don’t know what my dream was about; I know I have felt all day the words Do Justice, and I have been asking myself how I can be more intentional, more thoughtful as I consider what I want to also pause for just a moment to consider what that might mean for those who are the least among us. Is my power being used to harm just because I can? Or is my power being used to heal? I know that answering the questions requires going a whole lot slower, asking a lot more questions, and maybe being a little more gentle in how live in the world.