I was tidying up my desk at home when I came across them—my old scripts.
I believe that there are no coincidences. Looking back on my life, I could easily see how one thing led to another. Hobbies that turned into jobs. Interests that developed certain skills. It all made sense.
Except for one thing that didn’t quite fit. The six years I spent writing and producing murder mysteries.
It was a passion that started the summer I joined a writers group at my local library. The librarian mentioned she was looking for plays to be performed at the town’s centennial celebration. That’s how I wrote my first script—Who Stole Widow Murphey’s Cow? The dark comic twist at the end took everyone by surprise. People loved it. The show was performed three times that summer!
I wrote another murder mystery play. Then another. Like the one about a florist who accidentally poisoned herself. Or the one about a deadly wood chipper. And who could forget The Gatekeeper and the Mystery of Life? I kept writing and writing plays. Always comedic murder mysteries, one after the other.
I even put on shows at the RV park where my husband and I worked. They really brought residents together. Some of them volunteered as actors. Others made flyers advertising my plays. A few even teamed up to design and paint the sets.
Eventually, though, my husband and I retired and moved. I retired my murder mysteries too. I’d lost interest, as if a flame had gone out. I flipped through the old scripts now. Why had I been so obsessed? It’s not as if my stint writing clever plots had ever led to something. I wasn’t going to sell a script to Hollywood anytime soon.
And then it hit me. Something I’d read in a book ages ago. At the time, I’d been having nightmares. So one day, browsing in a bookstore, I picked up a volume at random: Edgar Cayce on Dreams. “God speaks to you in dreams,” the first line read. I took it as a sign and purchased the book. Funny thing was, the minute I tried to decipher my nightmares, they stopped. But I did come away with a lifelong love of dream study. And a handy tip: Whenever you have a question, put it to God before you go to sleep.
Maybe I could use that technique now. I sat at my desk, got out a pen and scrap of paper. “God,” I wrote, “why did you put murder mysteries in my life?” That night, before bed, I slipped the note under my pillow and got under the covers. I dreamed vividly. I saw myself in some kind of office building. There was a man standing by a door. I didn’t recognize him. He had that kind of vague, hazy face I’d seen in dreams before. “Right this way,” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“You have?” I said.
He opened the door to a conference room with high ceilings, light and airy. In the middle of the room was a large table. I tried not to stare, but I found it impossible. Around the table sat 12 or so nuns in full habit. Nuns!
I wasn’t Catholic. I’d never even talked to a nun before. But somehow I didn’t feel out of place among them. I felt as if I belonged. “This is your seat,” the man said, pointing to the head of the table.
“Mine?” I said. There had to be some mistake. But the nuns simply looked at me as if my arrival were the most natural thing in the world. I took my seat.
“Welcome to the committee,” the man said. “We create dreams for people on Earth. The kind of dreams that improve and change lives.”
What? A committee for dreams? Ridiculous! And with that I was back in my bed, alarm clock blaring.
“I had the weirdest dream!” I said to my husband at breakfast. I told him all about the office building, the conference room and the nuns.
“What do you think it means?” my husband said.
I took a sip of coffee. The dream was bizarre. But for some odd reason, I knew exactly what it meant. All those years I’d spent writing murder mysteries? All those intricate plot lines, cliffhangers and twists? The kinds that audiences could never see coming? They had been leading me to something all along.
“That’s my job in heaven,” I said. “I’m going to create dreams!”
