Blog 3793 – 04.10.2026

Making Sense of This Dream

I often quote the childhood song that we sang as a round “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as the most astute and accurate answer to the age old question, “What is life?”  The chorus goes:

“Row, row, row your boat 

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily 

Life is but a dream.”

I find this little song answers the question far better than the comic duo skit, What is Life?

“What is Life?

It’s a magazine.

How much does it cost?

Three bucks.

That’s too much.

That’s life.”

Many people believe that the Bible contains the answers to all the most important questions of life. Most of those people have never actually read the Bible, but instead have chosen to relied on the apologetic interpretations of certain passages that the preachers, teachers, and theologians have cited to support their particular views. The Bible is a book not of one singular voice of view point, but many varied voices and viewpoints and those often contradictory. This collection of books was voted upon by ecclesiastical bodies sixty-six books (39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament) that make up the Protestant Bible are like the twenty-six letters of the alphabet in that they can be used to say anything and everything. For every proof text to support one position there is another to disprove it and support the opposite. The Bible like many documents with many words is a lawyer’s dream come true for from it one can argue for the defense or prosecution in any case.

Why even on the question of what life is and where in came from there are two differing creations stories in the very first book Genesis. Oh, there have been many apologetic attempts to make these two very different accounts from two very different voices or perspectives agree yet most Bible scholars agree that they were written at different times using two perhaps three different traditions as source material. 

But, back to the original question, What Is Life? If life is but a dream as the song suggests, whose dream is it, what does it mean, and when and where will we awake from this dream that is sadly a nightmare for some and a sweet dream for others?

I can only share my opinion or theory and will not provide proof texts from the Bible to support or deny it. Heaven knows that I have spent most of my life arguing Bible texts from one position or the other. That reminds me of a line from a Simon and Garfield song, “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” Sadly, much of what we learned was not to teach us to think, but to merely program us to regurgitate propaganda, dogma, and politically or religiously correct nonsense.

I think, believe, suspect that this life is our dream and that we are the author, originator, producer, director and lead actor. Perhaps as today’s Poe picture quote this life is a dream within a dream. We will awake from this particular dream when we are ready, perhaps to dream another or just to wake up in our own bed, in our place of origin, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz realizing that what seemed so very real was only bits and pieces from a more real place.

One thing I definitely think or believe about this dream is that it is what we make it. So my plan for myself and advice to others is that we make it a sweet dream, a romantic comedy perhaps and not a war movie or some tragedy. Bill Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world is a stage and we but players.” Elvis Presley once quoted that line in a song, “Are you lonesome tonight?”

I am not lonesome tonight nor ready to bring the curtain down just yet. How about you?

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zG4v8KcxJjXw-Ag6y9HGnZvf9FmT5j82/view?usp=drivesdk

Are You Lonesome Tonight