I dreamed that I was Parrot


In a dream three nights ago I was driving west on the Mohawk trail (Route 2) in Massachusetts.

I began to drive down the steep hill from the famous hair-pin bend on Route 2 towards North Adams.

 I noticed a downed tree covering half of the roadway and decided that I should notify the authorities in North Adams so that cyclists would be warned of danger.

But as you might imagine from your own dreams there was no North Adams.

Instead my dream took me instantly into Williamstown, MA and to the Parish Hall at St. John’s Episcopal Church. I was so relieved since (in truth) the Rector of St. John’s is my good friend Peter Elvin and I knew that he would notify some authority or other.

Of course in dreamland it was not the actual parish hall. Rather it was an oblong inner room with wonderful interior brick work.

My Trinity Church Melrose MA colleague Bruce Lomas was in the room. (In real life he is a cyclist).

He and another Priest were summoned into a side room for an urgent and private consultation with the Bishop.

Bruce and his companion emerged and stated that the Bishop (Alexander Stewart?) wanted Diane Root to do some typing.  (Diane was a good colleague in Western Massachusetts, we are good friends).

‘Twas then that I realized that I was at St. John’s to preach a farewell sermon for their Rector Peter Elvin (a real person) on his retirement. I worried a bit in case that Peter’s wife Diana was not also retiring.

I perceived that I should dress up as a Parrot for my sermon.  I did do, wearing a black cassock, with a multi-coloured beach towel around my head.

 I began to preach on one of the Epistles, from a Parrot’s point of view.

 It was then that my friend Denis Ford (from older days in Western Massachusetts) entered the room.. He sat in a back row in what was by now a Chapel in the round.  He was wearing a tan coloured rain coat, and he would not stop talking.

It was at this point that, still in my Parrot costume,  I arose from my seat to insist on my prerogatives as the  Preacher.

I kept saying “Polly wants to preach, Polly wants to preach, Polly wants to preach”.

At this point I awoke. 

Wide awake,  I could not stop laughing at the silliness of the dream

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