Revelation in the Night

"I can't understand some of my critics, like Pound or Miss Weaver, for instance. They say it's obscure. They compare it, of course, with Ulysses. But the action of Ulysses was chiefly during the daytime, and the action of my new work takes place chiefly at night. It's natural things should not be so clear at night, isn't it now?" James Joyce in reference to the reactions of literay luminaries to his book "Finnegan's Wake."

I had a dream two nights ago that I was approaching a building, and a bar--but a stately one at that--named Finnegan's Wake. Apparently, in actuality, there is bar called Finnegan's Wake in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I may have been there before. Who knows. If someone had given me a quiz yesterday morning asking my to identify what "Finnegan's Wake" was I would have said a reference from dream from that night, not a real book nor real bar. There is also a such named bar in NYC.

In my dream it was day, I was in London, and I was trying to take a picture of the bar and building so I could post it on Facebook. Note to reader, this means I spend way too much time on Facebook although I have drastically deleted much of the providers of content besides friends. I was ruthless. In my dream, I couldn't get a picture of Finnegan's Wake bar/building. Somethings, apparently, only become visible at night. Stars, and this edifice of the imagined. Oddly, I could see Finnegan's Wake with my eyes but not through the iPhone camera screen.

As I searched Google last tonight, I discovered that "Finnegan's Wake" is the title of a James Joyce novel. This was the Irish writer's final work and the quote above accurately summarizes that the plot of the novel is non-linear and dream-like. Such an odd emanation, one that I was consciously unaware of its origin. I must have known this reference somewhere in the recesses of my mind and/or God revealed it to me.

The older I get, the more I am returning to the power of imagination instead of only the acquisition of information. I have gotten to the end of the knowledge road and found myself soul wanting. The Ph.D. process almost fried my brains and pickled my soul. Gratefully, all of the information, like a deck of cards, is being put in play by creativity and God is providing very interesting insight through my dreams at night.

My take on Finnegan's Wake is that the Lord is in the process of granting me wisdom that is setting all the facts on fire. Knowledge, like wood, must be ignited, yet knowledge used wrongly burns badly. How to burn without being destructive is the task at hand in the land. The constructive, creative, and compassionate use of knowledge as the means of building a better world. Redeeming the night through revelation at night. Take and drink at Finnegan's Wake...