(cont'd from yesterday's post)
The man's dream is a memory from his childhood in Germany as a boy.
Week after week, he and his family gathered with their friends in the 1940's on Sunday mornings in their little church. A train always passed behind them during the service. Fellow Germans--neighbors with homes and families--were being hauled in cattle cars.
Inside the church, the pastor's sermon one morning urged Christians to submit meekly to evil, as he said Christ would do. Outside the church that day, a whistle signaled that the train was stopping right next to them.
At that point, the man's dream becomes nightmarish. Everyone in the church service hears the people in the cattle cars screaming as they pound on their locked doors. The pastor raises his voice over the screams, shouting to his congregation to love their enemies. He nods to the organist and starts them singing a hymn. Loudly.
The congregation is alarmed and disturbed by the screams. But they comply and sing their hymn. The boy walks out by himself and sees the doomed prisoners.
from Sing a Little Louder
(cont'd tomorrow)
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