I've been pondering this dream a lot these past few weeks and have been looking forward to posting it because I do believe that there is an invitation that is being issued not only to Marcel and I but to anybody in the "community" (civic centre) who is open to "something new" (wine).    

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There are still some things that are unclear to me about the dream but many of its elements are quite easy to decode:

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The community center = The community of believers.  What is unclear to me is the scope of this community.  Is it a specific local parish, or is it the whole of the parishes in the city.  Is it just for Ottawa or is it simply symbolic of the whole Church?  But what was clear in the dream is that anybody could walk in and help themselves to the free wine.

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The door = Doors represent opportunities or points of access, so through this symbol, the Lord was saying that if we so desired, we could follow through into this opportunity and access the wine that was to be revealed on the other side.  The door was open and all we had to do was to walk through it into the other room.  But the Lord was also revealing that we would really need to be attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (the 1st man), who would reveal the door in the first place and guide us towards it.  

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The men = There were two men; one in the first room and one in the second room.  They never spoke but we understood what they were communicating.  And I never really saw them clearly.  They were always somewhat behind me to my right so that I could only see their legs or their arms, as when the second man handed me my glass of wine.  Very often in dreams, when we can't see the person and the context is positive, these "persons" are often angels or even the Holy Spirit.  These particular men emanated a great degree of joy, goodness, wholeness and good will.  They were there to serve and direct us and were very happy to do so.

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Right =  The right hand side will often symbolize "power" or "faith" and my sense is that in this dream, the two meanings are part of the message.  I believe the Lord was saying that He will "move in power" as He releases this gift and that we are to "move in faith" in order to receive it.

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The Sauternes = In the dream, Marcel and I understood right away what was being offered to us because of our waking life experience.  My father was quite a wine buff who had a substantial wine cellar.  On special family occasions, he would serve a bottle of Sauternes with dessert and we all loved it.  It is a very sweet, unctuous wine with a beautiful golden colour, that belongs to the Grand Cru Classé category, a classification that elevates a wine to the top of the pyramid so to speak.  Marcel and I own 2 bottles of this wine, as you can see in the image above.  They were a gift from my father, who bought them decades ago.  These wines are very expensive: today, the Château d'Yquem, pictured above on the right, is worth at least $750.00!  They are also long-lived wines, aging well even beyond the 100 year mark with their colour deepening and their flavours becoming more mature and complex with age.  

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Gold = This colour often speaks of the glory of God.  It also speaks of wealth, of valued treasure and of immense spiritual worth and favour.

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Dispenser =  This large container was on the table, available to anyone who wanted to draw some wine from it, and they could draw as much and as often as they wanted to.  It was elegant (black) and filled with grace (silver).  It was rooted in the past (retro look) but had been up-dated for our modern times (clean lines). 

 

So what was the Lord communicating through this symbol? Well, there are a few things that I can see so far:

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- The Lord will take great delight in granting this gift to us "free of charge" and will also encourage us to refresh
  ourselves as often as we wish.  It's like He'll have his angels minister to us first, giving us a taste of this wonderful new
  wine and when we've tasted its goodness, we will be enticed to go back and help ourselves to more.  

- It will be a sweet, refreshing and amazing drink and we will be filled with awe at the Lord's lavish gift.

- There will be something about the way the Lord "dispenses" this new grace that will be rooted in the past - so there
  will be something familiar about it - but it will still be new and updated.  There will be an elegance, a certain element
  of classiness as well as a redemptive grace linked to this gift.

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Through this dream then, I believe the Lord is saying that He is releasing or will soon be releasing into His church, a new gift that will have a wonderful sweetness to it.  It will be a very special "dessert-like" grace that we can freely partake of because it is completely free of charge.  All we need do is to step through the door that He will open before us and drink deeply of this new grace that will have a "touch of glory" to it.  This free drink will in part be mediated by His angels.  They will be our guides as we step forward in faith with open hearts and minds.

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Marcel and I have been declaring for some time now that there is a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is coming and so many of us have been hanging in there for decades, trying to hang on to all the promises the Lord has spoken into our lives over the years.  We tend to believe that the time is drawing close for this great intervention into human history and this dream adds another layer of promise.  Those of us who are thirsty for more, who are thirsty for the fulfillment of all the promises and for a great outpouring of grace upon the earth - the Lord is telling us, through this dream, that He will send a great refreshing that will reveal His glory and that will bring us great joy.  We will be enabled to "drink deeply" of His blessings.  We don't know exactly how this will happen.  We sense that some of it will come to us in our prayer time and that this will result in a much greater intimacy with the Lord.  But there will also be a more communal element to it - hence the community centre - where perhaps Joel's prophecy will be completely fulfilled, "I shall pour out my spirit on all humanity: (Joel 3:1).  All we need do is to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and humbly accept the great gift that is being offered.

 

Behold, the door is open...