Yea though I walk through the valley

I had a weird dream the other night. The whole dream was unusually vivid. The dream started at a store, very much like a bookstore, with lots of shelves, everything a light brown color. The place reminded me of Barnes & Noble or Borders. It was generic. It could've been a Hallmark store just as easily. I was there to get a greeting card, so I used a computer display in the store to make a personalized card. I don't remember why I wanted a greeting card, but it seemed an important enough reason at the time.

Once I secured the card, I had to go upstairs to buy stamps. This store was on the 28th floor so I got into the elevator to go up one floor. Unfortunately when I got in the elevator, it was but a shell of a car. Its walls were the plain metal exterior of the car. Its wiring was exposed. Its lights didn't seem to work. I began to worry. As it turns out, it was not a working elevator, and I plunged all 28 stories down to my death.

Now, although odd, at this point the dream's not entirely shocking. I've had my share of dreams where I die, or come close to dying, both at the hands of others and of purely natural causes. I've been shot at by a sniper, I've been chased down by anthropomorphic lightning... But I usually wake up--breathing heavily. It's supposed to be a nightmare. Not this time!

Although dead in the elevator, I did not wake up. The dream calmly continued. I--now dead--was suddenly back in the store. My sister was there and I was attempting to say goodbye, although she was rather bored with me and walked away. My mom was also there. Then quite suddenly I was no longer in the store. I was walking out of a house, through a patio. The patio had a covering with wooden supports, painted white, and thin wooden lattice work between the supports. I was walking with other people in a single-file line. The only recognizable person in the group was Jesus! Although he was not what you may imagine of Jesus. He was white, middle-aged, with short brownish-grey hair, wearing glasses, sandals, and a robe--a bath robe. He had a small face with tight muscles. I could see the veins near his temples and the wrinkles near his eyes.

I said to him that I couldn't recall if I had repented before death and apologized if I had. He said I had. We continued walking in silence. Then I woke up.

My favorite quote

Although overly idealistic, I've long liked this quote:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "you are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?