Dearest Rachel –
And to think, the Brits (in the form of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) would make fun of the Spanish Inquisition. As it happens, they went through their own periods of attempting to root out heretics. And while I’m sure their methods weren’t like the one we faced in my dream, I dare say they were no less ridiculous in real life.
Yes, my dream had us living in the late Middle Ages, and being accused of heresy, along with thousands of others in our village, despite being good Protestants like everyone else in England at the time. I’ll get to my suspicions as to why later on, as it didn’t occur to me until I woke up, but suffice to say, it was incumbent upon us peasants to individually prove our innocence to the magistrates.
Here’s where it got ridiculous, although perhaps no more than being bound and thrown into a nearby body of water, where floating indicated you were a witch, and sinking meant you were innocent, but dead from drowning. The three of us were set in turns before a wooden panel, with a rounded edge at its far end, so it looked rather like one of the stone tablets Moses came down from Sinai with. The panel had a rail all the way around its edges, and various pegs and notches set on its face. On the flat end where we stood facing it, there was a gap in the edging, where we were to thrust a small steel ball up the edge, to run through the course described by the pegs and notches, and hopefully to get it to land in a specific notch that would declare us innocent of the charges against us.
In short, we were playing a crude game of pinball for our lives.
Again, in retrospect, this may not be all that crazy. The children of Israel used a pair of what were essentially dice, the Urim and Thummim, to determine God’s will in certain situations, and generations later, their usage was literally proverbial.
People throw lots ·to make a decision [L into the lap], but the ·answer [decision] comes from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33, Expanded Bible
On the other hand, this medieval pinball game seemed to have an element of skill to it as well as luck. Although in my case, when I went first, I’m pretty sure that it was pure chance that the ball landed in the ‘innocent’ notch by pure chance. You seemed to have a better handle on how to manipulate the board, jostling it as needed in order to try to get the ball to go where you wanted it to.
Unfortunately, it never got anywhere near the slot that would have acquitted you. And as for Daniel, he didn’t really even try, and was also judged guilty, based on the results he got. I pled your case to the unyielding judges, asking to take your place (which they considered for a moment, presumably recognizing the willingness of a man to protect his family, before denying my request) before demanding to take the test a second time – if I couldn’t stop what was going to happen to either of you, I would rather join you two in your fate. This attempt, I limp-wristed the ball’s trajectory, and I basically got the same results as Daniel. We were now all three to be taken to the execution field at Tyburn.
Yes, I know Tyburn is supposedly a hill in real life, and the idea of an open field in the middle of London is absurd, but this is a dream we’re talking about; bear with me.
To be fair, there wasn’t much to this particular scene. We were lying there together, bound up to the point of almost being hog-tied, with the field littered with similar bodies as far as the eye could see. Were it not for the rags we all wore, instead of tattered uniforms, it might look like the aftermath of some great battle, with the fallen scattered throughout the open space. Only, we hadn’t fallen; in our bound state, we couldn’t stand if we wanted to. And most of us were still alive, as the few axmen wandering the area had more work to do than they could get to with any great speed. It would take several swings to hack a person to pieces, and there were thousands of us, but only a handful of them.
But what could we do, except lie there and wait for them? All we could hope for was that the first blow, when it came, would render us sufficiently insensate that we wouldn’t be aware of the killing strike – assuming the two weren’t one and the same. I think that the waiting went on for so long that I woke up before it happened – which, given the conventional wisdom about dying in one’s dream, is probably just as well.
As I lay there, trying to decide whether to open my eyes and determine just how dark the room really was in the moment (and by extension, what time it was, and whether I should think about getting up or not), it hit me as to what was going on, both in my dream and in those days. All too often, the property of those being condemned for heresy was forfeited to the rulers – whether political or religious, it really doesn’t matter, especially not to us being put to death. It’s part of why Giles Corey refused to plead to the charges made against him in Salem long ago; he would die, but his family would still inherit his land, rather than getting it snatched out from under them.
But it struck me that those claiming that they were attempting to root out heresy were, in the process, enriching themselves in much the same way Ahab did with Naboth and his vineyard – which, let’s just say, may have been clouding their judgment in their alleged pursuit of truth and righteousness. Who knows? Maybe these were the folks of which Jesus spoke who would bang on the doors of heaven, claiming to have done important things in His name, only to be rebuffed and literally told to go to hell; if they were no better than Ahab or Jezebel, presumably they deserved the same fate.
That’s something to wake up to, isn’t it, honey? Not sure it has any application to my life, as such, though, but maybe someone reading over your shoulder can use it somehow. Then again, it’s a dream; there’s no particular reason it should make sense, whether for me or anyone else. In any event, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m probably still going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 