Dream I Had: The Gospel of Beer

Note: Names have been changed to protect identity.

I just had this dream, literally. It was scary enough to wake me up and make me write this at once, lest I forget it.

On the eve of Peter's birthday, a couple of my drinking buddies and I were out by the Drag. We had a couple beers with us. Before you think that I was leading a life of debauchery, I was actually praying the Rosary in the background, silently meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of Christ. It was a Friday. I remembered I forgot a book to carry with me. So I went back to the apartment in West Campus to get Purgatorio by Dante, the second book in the Divine Comedy.

After I came back, I took out my beer to toast and cheer. My friend Peter looked at me. He smiled. I nudged him, come on man, where's your beer? He took out his bottle. It was empty. At that point, a snake rose in me. I wanted to strike him. He still held his beer out to cheer; I just sank to the ground on my knees, and the beer in my hand emptied itself into the storm drain.

The point of drinking beer isn't just to drink. The point of drinking is because you have someone else to drink it with. As we taste the bitterness of the cup, we share each others' sorrows. As we drink to our health, we shoulder each others' burdens. What a sad world this would be if there was no one to drink with. One of loneliness and despair.

Thankfully, there is One who has drank this cup, and He offers it to us. Let us take hold the cup of salvation. Let us share in the cup He gives us. He asks each and every one of us, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Our salvation consists of nothing less of dying to ourselves and being raised to walk in new life: the life of Christ. One might say it means being born again. For this is the way of the world: to share in the cup of suffering and to carry His Cross. I suppose the dream wasn't so bad if it led me to this new insight.

For Christ and His Church