 A dream in Tehran
There is the sense here of an impenetrable world
where the possibility of the replacement of festiveness with directed
hostility seems to simmer just beneath
the surface
By Mark Dankof
October 14, 2003
The Iranian
Chapter one from Mark Dankof's "A
Summer of A Thousand Nights: From Tehran to Susa".
Part One represents a re-reading and collation of his diary
kept in Iran
as a twenty-one year old American residing there in the summer
of 1976. Dankof is a correspondent
and staff writer for the Internet news service,
News and Views. In recent years, he has pursued post-graduate
work in systematic theology and theological German at Westminster
Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light
become night around me,' even the darkness will not be
dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness
is as light to you.' –Psalm 139: 12
I am awakened in the late hours of this June night
by a most comfortable breeze, blowing through the screen which
separates
my bedroom from the elevated balcony terrace. The breeze seems
as perpetual as the darkness, permeated and illumined by moonlight.
I have never felt a breeze this comfortable, even as a boy traveling
and sleeping in the deserts of California by night. It enters
my mind that this must be the reason for the Hebrew word ruah and
the Greek word pneuma, both of which appear in the Scripture
and are simultaneously employed for the dual concepts of physical
wind in the cosmos, and the Spirit of God in the realm of the
unseen.
The slight wind continues to blow without ceasing.
As it does, I am conscious of the fact that its awakening of
me
from sleep
has terminated what was a very significant, and seemingly mysterious
dream. This is an especially curious insight, as I must confess
as I write that I cannot remember the contents of the dream,
no matter what degree of effort is exerted to do so.
My mild
frustration over the inability to recall this transaction of
the nocturnal subconscious is compensated for by the breeze,
which continues apace at a speed and temperature seemingly controlled
by a thermostat not made by human hands or of this present world.
I simply remember that the dream, whatever it was, produced a
sense of transcendent tranquility, subsequently enhanced by the
movement of the night desert breeze blowing through Tehran from
south to north. Now being fully awake, the thought occurs
to me that I should walk out to the elevated balcony terrace
just beyond my bedroom,
to get a good nighttime glimpse of Tehran while enshrouded by
the cool night desert air. The movement of air has lifted the
haze of dust and automobile exhaust which often hovers over this
urban sprawl, increasingly one of the world's most significant
cities at this juncture in history. Each time I have appeared
at this balcony at night over a period of successive summers,
my mind receives a most impressive and permanent photographic
imprint of an endless succession of flat topped roofs, terraces,
alleyways, tree-lined streets, and the incessant twinkling of
what seem to be an incalculable number of city lights to the
south.
Watching these lights for an undetermined period
of time in the darkness, I am now reminded of my ongoing impression
of
the southern part of this city, largely formed by several visits
to the Tehran bazaar--a labyrinthine maze of shops, narrow streets
and hidden passages, and scores of people speaking languages
I do not understand. On the one hand, I like the sights, smells,
and mysterious ambience surrounding this apparently central place
of economic transaction and political intrigue.
On the other,
there is the sense here of an impenetrable, Byzantine, subterranean
world where the possibility of the replacement of festiveness
with directed hostility seems to simmer just beneath the surface.
There is only one other time when my sixth sense is similarly
aroused by the perception of that which is both surreal and forbidding–the
distant sounds of the call to prayer (the moezzin) which
emanate from the mosque. The cool, soothing breeze continues to
blow from the south. As
it does, I feel the need for another visual scene in a completely
different sector of the city on this night. As remarkable as
it seems, this is achievable simply by leaving the terraced balcony
outside my bedroom for an identical one just outside the kitchen
in this same apartment–this time facing due north.
The
Biblical God has bestowed His countless blessings upon me many
times in many places on this earth. I am reminded of this
truth again tonight in standing on the terraced balcony of the
north, with the stark magnificence of the Elburz mountain range
almost at my fingertips. The great mountain Damavand lies to
my right, northeast of the city. In the winter, one is awe-struck
by the indescribable beauty of the snow on these peaks, further
visual evidence of the artistry and handiwork of God.
Tonight,
an evening of early summer, unveils a range of stark, encircling
omnipresence, whose primary message to me continues to be my
own dependence upon the Sovereign of the Universe and of History
who created these seemingly immutable edifices of physical
grandeur out of nothingness. I am reminded too, that this city
of millions,
which lies at the southern edge of the Elburz, also remains
at the feet of its Creator as well. Invaders, empires, and dynasties
come and go in the context of time. These mountains testify
that
it is God alone who is constant and unchanging. I still
cannot remember anything about the dream from which I was awakened by the southern
breeze. But as I gaze north toward
the mountains in the darkness of the terrace balcony above
the dimly lit street called Golestan Number 4 off of Saltanatabad,
there is a dawning and intuitive sense that my time in this
place
far removed from America is running out. I do not know why
or when. But it seems that this is so.
I wonder
tonight if this is simply the reflexive reaction of someone who grew up in
the American Air Force, where the only
permanence is impermanence and transition, or if my intuition
is the Spirit's whisper in the night desert air, in the
form of a premonition. German Lutherans are taught to seek
God's revelation in the objective tools and format of the inscripturated
Apostolic Word and the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of
our Lord. Because of this background, I maintain a healthy suspicion
of the subjective and the intuitive as related to the Divine,
especially packaged in the subconscious machinations of the
mind which eventually reach the conscious level primarily when the
mind is engaged in reflection upon the meaning of the past,
the present, or the future.
But
these feelings do not depart this evening as I pray to the God of Israel
who revealed Himself via the Incarnate Logos in
the linear procession of time and history, while continuing
to gratefully graze at His handiwork expressed in the mountains
north of the city of Tehran. As St. Paul admonishes the
believer to "pray without ceasing' [I Thess. 5: 17], I continue
to pray on the terraced balcony through the night and into
the dawn.
It seems that I have been blessed in these hours
with an ability to focus my heart and mind on concentrated communication
with God in a way not known or experienced before. The
session
begins to wane only with the beginning of the appearance
of the light of dawn as the beginning of the dissipation of the night.
It is broken most consciously with the familiar sounds
of animal hooves, directly below me in the street. A aging
villager is leading a donkey eastbound on Golestan 4. The donkey is carrying
blankets, pots and utensils, several hefty
bags of fruit and produce, and other items I cannot identify
from the balcony. He walks with a slow, but steady and
willing gait, and a demeanor that suggests his patience with the general
demands of life and the specific tasks of this dawning
day. The elderly man's attire consists of a haggard, bill-less cap;
worn sandals; white T-shirt; and a coat and pants made
of aging light gray materials. His gait is as methodical as the donkey's.
Passing by my terraced balcony, the old man raises
his right arm to engage in a congenial wave, matched by a wry
smile and
eyes that continue to sparkle even in the earliest
hours of the morning. I visually follow him, and the burden-laden
donkey until
they are out of sight, probably headed for a small
village east and south on the outskirts of town. There is a sudden,
poignant
sadness at the disappearance of these benevolent creatures
of another age. I wonder if I will see them again.
The
Spirit's whisper in the urban desert tells me that I will not forever
remain here, despite my love of this place
and desire to remain. He tells me that this summer
is a special gift from the Lord, to search the treasures of this
country and
its history in the blink of an eye that has been granted.
The Spirit insists that "he who has an ear' [Rev. 2:
11] will maintain this laborious journal as a record
of the days when I obeyed His mysterious voice, in the ongoing formulation
of the kaleidoscopic mosaic that is my life.
Light
has indeed replaced darkness once again from the vantage point of
my northern balcony, as another dawn hails from the
east, to be replaced this evening by the setting
of another sun in the west. The time is passing quickly. The content
and the
meaning of the night dream in the south desert breeze
have come to conscious memory.
God is at work in these unfathomable times
and seasons, although I cannot understand or scrutinize
the inscrutable. In this regard, on a summer desert morning in Iran, I affirm
the observation of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes
11: 5 that, "As
you do not know the path of the wind, or how the
body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the
work of
God, the Maker of all things."
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A dream in Tehran