DREAM
How does what you dream form and shape your life?
This was the question that was posed at Grace Institute1 in November, following a presentation by Rev. Dr. Craig Nessan. It’s a question that has been working on me ever since.
Dr. Nessan challenged us with the idea that what changes people are not arguments, but rather what they imagine about themselves, about others, about the world. It is our holy work, he said, to imagine the dream of God.
Dr. Nessan continued, Jesus invites us to imagine the dream of God, but also to embody it. It’s a dream about the future, but it’s already breaking into your reality right now. It’s a dream that reverses conventional rules and expectations. We’ve been socialized into a dream of division. But in God’s dream, all are welcome and all are satisfied.
What would our world look like if we all went about imagining and embodying the dream of God?
There’s a children’s book that I’ve had for a number of years now. The Dreamer, written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Barry Moser, begins: There once was a young artist who lived all alone, quietly, and who spent his days as most young artists do: daydreaming. It was a lovely way of living. He would simply lie about, thinking, wondering, perhaps making small wishes. And as he dreamed in his mind, he would see something he hadn’t seen before. Something beautiful. Something new.2
Doesn’t it make you just want to take a day (or a lifetime) to dream? To wonder? To create?
As the story goes on, the artist decides to make what he is dreaming in his mind. He makes stars, an earth, blue water, green grass and trees. And then this beautiful line: He painted green grass and trees all night long and by morning he was in a forest, sleepy, and he lay down under a giant pine to dream. In his dreams he saw many, many new things and they all moved like life.
God, help us dream of new things that move like life.
The artist makes whales, birds, a cow, and finally some new artists in his own image. The book ends: The world began filling up with artists. These made new ones and the new ones made even newer ones and, of course, they all loved to daydream. Living among blue water and green grass, they have daydreamed the most beautiful things in the world. The first young artist, still a dreamer, has always called them his children. And they, in turn, have always called him God.
We were born to dream with God, to embody God’s dream of a world where all are welcome and all are satisfied, where peace reigns and forgiveness flows, where the forgotten are remembered and the lost are found, where hope grows and love wins.
God, help us to dream–and to embody–abundant life for all. Amen.
1 Learn more about Grace Institute at https://www.luther.edu/grace-institute/.
2 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/387449.The_Dreamer