Dreamers (1882)

Albert Joseph Moore’s Dreamers (1882) shows three women, two sleeping, one waking. It is currently displayed at Birmingham Art Gallery and set me pondering. The whites and light yellows create a serene and dream-like atmosphere, and it is not obvious if the women are real and dreaming, or are themselves the products of a dream. Their strange clothing and the classical décor to their rear indicates an other-worldly, ethereal scene.

Dreams feel real when we are having one and real life can take on a dream-like or nightmarish feel depending on the events through which we go. I wonder if, when the Christian arrives in heaven, it will seem like beautiful dream, but one which wonderfully turns out to be more real than the screen on which you read these words. The other side of the coin is equally true, sadly; some will arrive in the other, dark place, but it will be a nightmare from which no alarm clock can offer rescue and reprieve.

Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

Joel 3:12

A. D