My dream from tonight, in which I learned an important lesson.
Read on for accountability’s sake if you have time. This was my dream on May 24, 2011, between midnight at 2 AM, and recorded within one hour of waking.
I was in the company of friends, sharing stories and enjoying good fellowship together. Before we parted ways that night, I suggested that we take a group panoramic to commemorate the occasion. This was greeted with a round of approving murmurs and everyone got to their feet to move into position for the photograph. I held my poor point-and-shoot camera as people shuffled around.
Somehow there were more people than I had expected in that place on that day; people who were not my acquaintances, but strangers. Very different people they were: the turban-clad members of an African cultural organization, a massive crowd of Asian-American Christians (including, in minority, those from AACF), the young lords of Silicon Valley, a wedding party, a dance crew, a group of statuesque young men wearing jeans and white tees, a corresponding group of maidens clad in white chiffon, and many others whose faces now elude my memory. Because there were such different groups present, I suggested that we take the panoramic in groups – each group would congregate together, I would take the picture, and then later stitch them together.
I, in a corner of the room, called out, “Let those who need to use the restroom do so now!” To my mixed satisfaction and impatience, almost everyone immediately turned and headed for the restrooms, leaving an empty area for me alone to fill.
Minutes later, I found groups were formed between the tall columns punctuating the room’s splendid and expansive white interior. I proceeded to take the photographs.
My failure began immediately. Since I am an amateur photographer with a pitiful excuse for a camera, I was dissatisfied with the pictures I was taking, and fumbled with my white balance settings, my scene settings, the focus… I missed several opportunities to capture excellent photographs and strangers around me with their point-and-shoots used the opportunity to take their own pictures, equally as amateur. This vexed me. As for the groups, they largely ignored me; when I was finally ready to press the shutter, they had already shuffled away to make room for the next group. I had missed the shot.
My mind was also extremely distracted, for I was frustrated by the many people who were just lounging about the space, neither participating in the activity nor facilitating it – quite the opposite, truly. I beheld their presence, through my lens, like that of flies buzzing messily around and besmirching an otherwise perfectly attractive spectacle.
I eventually realized that I was missing not only shots, but whole groups, as many groups started congregating in a different area, and were photographed by a different person altogether. I climbed up to the vantage point from which that rival photographer was shooting, and spoke with him. I said, “It is not good for these photos to be taken by different cameras. Everything will look different. The completed panoramic will not look coherent.” He considered and saw my point, and surrendered his camera. I asked him, “What should we do? Shall we ask everyone whether I should retake the previous photographs you already took?”
He agreed to the vote. I shouted to the hundreds, “People! There has been a miscommunication about the photographing process. From now on, I personally will be taking the official photos for the panoramic, and as such, there are a couple shots that I think should be retaken to match the others. Let us vote – do you want to retake the photos, or keep what we have?” Groans filled the room, and I desperately scanned the crowd for raised hands. Most were apathetic. As for those who voted, supporters were almost equal in the two parties, but those who preferred retaking the photos marginally outnumbered the others.
I continued to fail in my task, spending too much time trying to fit everyone into the photographs and having to coax my subjects’ attention spans to their disappointingly short maximums. The groups scattered before I could capture a good shot. I hated my camera, and felt personally stressed.
Then came my biggest failure. The group of young Asian-American Christians assembled, and they were of an enormous number. They were spread too sparsely, and I couldn’t fit them at all into the picture! I called out to them with this information, but they silently did nothing. Then, before I could take the picture, they changed positions! And this was repeated in intervals of about ten seconds each. People walked to the right, to the left, stretched their arms up, fell prostrate, formed mini groups…they were putting on a silent drama! I was frustrated beyond belief, and said, “Keep still! Keep still!”
In my ignorant confusion, I did not lift my camera until the third or fourth pose in their short charade, when people were huddled in small groups as they depicted the burial of Christ through their body worship. I realized then what a fool I had been, how blind I was to the potential and beauty that had been before me throughout the night, how careless with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fellowship, collaboration, progress, and brotherhood, and, if a final and most insignificant reason must be mentioned, for personal artistic blooming in a holistic sense.
I was extremely disturbed by and ashamed of my own weakness, that I had approached this extraordinary event with a legalistic, Machiavellian, and smallish mindset instead of one alive with truth, freedom, and power. I sought and wielded control, and lost it completely. My tiny goal was so off from what could have been; and I could not even achieve that.
I did not want to participate any further in this nightmare, and willed myself awake from the dream in a sweat…so light and freshly impressed in my mind was my sleep.
Tonight I have learned a lesson. For it is my waking self that plays out this allegory a thousand times a day in similar instances, though of smaller magnitude. It is my dreaming self, the one mysteriously blessed by God to convey wisdom in critical moments, that has opened the repentant eyes of my waking self to my own biases and fallibilities.
