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Perhaps we should not ask simply, what does the dog mean?” Instead, we should ask: “What kind of affection is the dog expressing here?” That question may lead us closer to the deeper principle of correspondence.

The “foreigner” represents something within us that remains foreign to the spiritual life. It could be an affection, desire, thought, or intention that is essentially not compatible with our relationship with the Lord.

When we are in spiritual struggle, the Divine is still present, working toward our liberation by means of a deeper conjunction with the Lord. The remarkable thing is that the Israelites themselves could not yet perceive any of this. However, their inability to hear did not mean that God could not hear them either.

Perhaps we imagine that holy ground must be somewhere distant: sacred sanctuary, a pilgrimage site, a mountain, or a place where something extraordinary happened. But the story of Moses illustrates otherwise. Perhaps a burning bush is present within our lives.

When we rely exclusively on what we can see, hear, touch, measure, and explain materially, our perception becomes limited to the outermost level of reality. Swedenborg therefore sees Moses’ taking off his shoes as a symbolic act: setting aside the merely sensory perspective in order to approach the Divine.

The story of Moses begins with three women: his mother, his sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter. Through these women, what God has prepared is quietly preserved and nurtured.

The more the Lord transforms us, the less we trust in our own intelligence and the more we recognize that every true insight and every genuine good comes from the Lord alone. Perhaps this is why the story of Joseph continues to inspire us.

“Do not interpretations belong to God?”
These words remind us that dreams are not puzzles solved by human ingenuity. Their true meaning belongs to the Lord, who alone knows the hidden workings of the human heart.

Perhaps our own dreams, whether literal dreams during sleep or the deeper dreams we carry in our hearts, invite us to listen more deeply to what God is accomplishing within us.

Modern culture often swings between two extremes: dismissing dreams as meaningless brain activity, or treating every dream as a divine message. Swedenborg avoids both extremes.