hmmmm....

I haven't heard back from this guy yet, but I figured I'd post this, 'cause it's too good not too.

From: ---- ------ [******@*****.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 7:51 PM
To: mateo_lind@hotmail.com
Subject: Two dreams

Dear Mr Lind!

I´m writing to you from Sweden. I´m a 59 year old man, born in Aland, the islands between Sweden and Finland.
Three weeks ago I also had a dream I was wondering about. I was on a graveyard and somebody had told me I had to find a gravestone with a certain name on it. It was a sunny winterday with a little snow on the grass, just melting a little in the sunshine.
I ran from stone to stone desperately looking for that name, but I just couldn´t find it. I woke up feeling sad and cold of sweat and after some time realising it was only a dream. But I could not forget the very unusual name, "Titus Lind", I was told to look after, and I wondered if a person with that name really could exist in the real world. In Sweden Lind is a family name which is not so common, but not completely rare either. But the first name, Titus, I have heard only once in my life, and that belonged to an Estonian man I heard about when I was a boy back in Aland.
A couple of days later, I told my eldest daughter about the dream and the unusual name. She said she would make a search in the web for that name, Titus Lind, later.
The 9th of November, I went to Jerusalem in Israel and stayed there for one week in a Jewish family. When I came home, my daughter told me that the name didn´t exist in Sweden, but someone in The US used the name in a homepage and a blog.
I thought this was fantastic, but not before today I myself visited the blog.
I can tell you I was astonished when my eyes first of all located some sentences about a dream. What was this? You also had a dream? Not in the same time, but all the same strange. I read it and was even more astonished, because it seemd clearly to have some religious connection to my dream.
Before I tell you my interpretation of our dreams, I want to tell you one more amazing thing. I looked further down in your blog and found a picture of Jesus Christ, a very familiar picture to me. It was painted in Ameria by a man named Warner Sallman in 1941 and was widely spread all over the world. That man, Warner Sallman, was originally born in the Aland islands, and was a friend of my grandfather on mothers side. They were both born in a very small village, 20-30 persons, named Bratto, near Degerby in Foglo, Aland. In younger days Sallman emigrated to America. When I was a boy attending the sunday-school, we all got small copies of that painting, which was extra popular in Aland because of the origin of the painter. Three years ago, Sallmans children donated an exact copy of that painting to the church in Foglo, Aland.
Back to the dreams.
My dream, as I now see it, must mean that I tried to save your sole, but I didn´t succeed. Not in the dream at least.
Your dream, as I understand it, means that your soul was on it´s way down to darker places, but someone wanted to save it.
That someone has linked us together.
To end this story, I think I have an important message to you, and that it must be some reason for all this. At least I really want yuou to answer my letter, because I have a strong feeling that some high or holy power must have organised this connection.
I was a lecturer in statistics in younger days, and I can tell you, this can´t be a coincidence, such probabilities hardly exist.
I also wonder who you are. I mean could it be any other connection between us? Do you have any Swedish connection?
By the way, finally, I read about "Titus" in the encyclopedia. He was a roman empiror destroying Jerusalem in the year 70 after Christ, Jerusalem, which I visited for the first time in my life two weeks ago, just fter my dream. Talk about coincidents!

Once more, please, contact me!

Best regards
---- ------

And this is what I wrote back.

From: mateo_lind@hotmail.com
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 9:15 PM
To: ******@*****.com
Subject: RE: Two dreams

Hej, ----! Hur mår du?

I am a 26 year-old man who teaches Latin in Charlottesville, VA.

I actually know no Swedish, although my paternal grandfather was a Swede. All the rest of my ancestors were Dutch or Welsh. In fact, his father's (my great-grandfather) surname was something like Lilligigren, however, when he immigrated to the States his last name was replaced with something easier for Americans to spell. In fact, my first name is not Titus, but Matt. However, on my blog I use the allonym "Lucretius," after Titus Lucretius Carus, a 1st century B.C. Roman Epicurean philosopher. So one of my friends links to my blog by referring to me as Titus Lind.

However, the fact that this name appeared in your dream was remarkable if it were referring to me, because the names "Matt" and "Lind" are actually fairly common in the United States. In fact I think there are twenty other Matt Linds I have found through the internet.

I am sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but your e-mail came to me on Thanksgiving Day, a holiday in the United States when it is customary to travel and visit relatives. (The timing of your e-mail also seemed to me to be quite interesting.) I have been living in Virginia for the past five years, and I went to visit my sister who just moved to New York State for the holiday weekend. I just read your e-mail for the first time today.

The coincidences that you have pointed out are quite startling. I have been struggling with depression and questions about my faith for some time now. I interpreted my dream that God was still looking out for me even though I feel confused and lost. However, your e-mail was remarkable!

I was also amazed by the coincidence in the picture. I had merely looked for a picture of Christ that seemed to convey the idea of the beatitudes. However, I discovered on the internet that this Warner Sallman studied art in Chicago, IL, where I grew up.

I would love to hear about your experiences in Jerusalem, as it is a dream of mine to visit there someday. I personally have no connections to Sweden, as my family has been living in the United States for four generations. However, my wife's uncle is also of Swedish descent, and has visited his relatives in Sweden several times.

Thank you for taking the time and the effort to look me up and send me a note.

Blessings,

Matt Lind