I listened to a sermon today.
The sermon was from my own minister. There were not many words. It was an image. It was an image of me standing on the beach with the minister. The water wanted to roll in gently, lapping the shore gently and lazily with easy leisurely strokes as it is inclined to do when the tide begins to roll out, but it was restless with the wind. The kind of sea wind that bats at your clothing like flags, that shakes everything that has not declared its status as stationary and unmovable. The wind commanded the water to speak its thrashing sounds in the language of rough surf.
There was a gull flying in the wind. The gull faced me, but it could not move. The wind was against the gull, so it remained in the same place in the sky, not moving forward, but not being carried by the wind. Any attempt at travel or movement by the gull was futile. Yet the wind gave it no need to flap its wings at all. The gull was like a kite.
The minister turned to me and told me I had the voice of the ocean. My voice has the same effect as the ocean waves. He said I am the gull.
I understood what he meant by the gull, but as always, it troubles me. If I turn and face the same direction as the wind, will I be swept far away from where I think I need to be? Am I that mistrusting of the intentions of the wind? Do I not recognize the futility of the resistance of trying to move against it?
These are my dreams. My dreams have a tendency to be comprised of being lost, of not being able to find my way to where I intend to be. Not where I am supposed to be necessarily, but where I think I am supposed to be. Hence, where I intend to be. My dreams also leave me in a classroom, where I feel somewhat out of place, or the lessons may not apply or I have not studied for what is being taught. Or I am wandering from one classroom to another in a school.
A few nights ago I made a request to not be so lost in my dreams. To not have to taste the flavor of frantic chaos that leaves me to wake exhausted, desiring a gentle calmness of my psyche as a respite and reprieve from the tumultuous dreamscape. My request has been granted and I have awakened with a sense of ease and peacefulness.
Yet I am concerned as to what message I am delivering to myself in my dreams that I’m sweeping under the rug. So the minister now shows up on the beach with this message.
It sounds silly and ironic to say this, but I may have to sleep on it.
I am the minister of myself 
Maybe the gull has found perfect balance and is experiencing the moment before the wind dies down or changes. Even so, the gull can still move down and land on ground or lift itself up to where conditions are different. The gull knows this but continues to play the kite.
A moment of bliss has no movement… it’s a complete internal experience that to onlookers shows no movement and they conclude that the one in bliss has become static. The gull, the minister, the moment… all experiencing the winds of life as they listen to the song of ocean.