The Other Side of the River

I grew up on a farm in Michigan, just a few miles from the border with Ohio. A stream runs through that farm; a small river entering the land at the NE corner and cutting a diagonal across to the SW as it flows on to it’s appointed place; that another story in itself. A sizable part of our cropland was on the other side of that river. We would drive our farm equipment through a shallow fording place in the river to get to that other side.

I have found through the years that often in one’s sleep, we dream of places we use to know, but though in our dreams we recognize the place, in our dreams the place is often much different, yet the same. Over the years I’ve had a few dreams like that involving this part of the farm that was across the river. One of those occassions was in February, 2001, and at that time, in another context, I first penned these words.

In my dream, that area across the river was much more vast. It was a wheat field, the wheat ripe for harvest. As the dream started I was walking along the riverbank in a part of the field yet to be harvested. Then I came to a part that had been harvested; the short cut off straw stems standing up exposed to the blue sky and shining sun, white clouds here and there also in the sky. What I remember is the very real sense of tranquility and peace. No hustle and bustle, no scurrying here and there. So I walked on in the familiar yet unfamiliar field across the river.

Then in the dream I came to a road, and the dream ended. As lay there in my bed, I had a sense as though for a very brief second the curtain of time had been opened a slight crack, and I had a very brief glimpse of an eternity yet to be.

"Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it enterd into the hearts of man what God has in store for those who love him." (I Corinthians 2:9)

~ The Billy Goat ~