A group of people are at a friend's home for a social gathering. The host holds a metal dog crate that carries a very small woman, the size of a medium-size dog. It is their great-grandmother who remains nameless. No one seems astonished. At first Rachel is afraid of the elderly woman (is she crazy?) and also concerned for her treatment.
They explain that great-grandma has always been the sweetest person and still is. She has gentle eyes, very few wrinkles, and always smiles. Yet, she is senile and seems mute. Everyone is endearing to her as they converse, “Yes, her other daughter moved to… a few years ago.”
She has no forced trappings and leaves her cage. She plays with a child in the room (presumably her great-grandchild). They crawl on the floor and interact like children do. After 15 or so minutes, their playtime and the side show is over.
The woman heads to a small, dark hole and disappears. The others exit to the kitchen or wherever, but inquisitive and concerned Rachel lags behind to peer into the hole. She curiously asks the hosts: “Did you know there are two sets of eyes in the hole?”
Her seat on the couch is taken, by the child who now plays with Barbies. The crude clothes are ripped burlap-like material wrapped around the dolls. Rachel kind of likes that idea. Her sisters created similar fashionable Barbie clothes as children, free of store-bought trappings.
Because her seat is now occupied, she sits away from her husband, behind the conversation area on a large floor pillow. She ponders. Maybe Rachel wonders if she will ultimately be the elderly woman, endearingly housed yet "aged & holing," separate, smiling, and mute. She in no way embraces the idea, yet surprisingly is not worried. Great-grandmother was content, not alone (two sets of eyes were in the hole), and observers seemed respectfully considerate. It feels like a scattered, crazy dream (and actually is).
It is a weird dream, but not a nightmare, as she was more the observant rather than fretful viewer. Down-the-road helplessness is currently a moot or unsettled point for Rachel. But yet, no matter, unbelievable as some dreams seem, there are odd, hole-like situations in the Bible:
- A fiery furnace (Daniel 3);
- Daniel's frightening lion's den (Daniel 6);
- Joseph's empty (Gen. 37) and Jeremiah's muddy cisterns (Jer. 38);
- Jonah's stinky and germy whale gut (Jonah 2);
- Lazarus' noxious tomb (John 11);
- Paul's cramped rescue basket (Acts 9); and,
- Jesus' tomb (Matt. 28)
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have,
because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5).
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