Dream a Little Dream



Boyhood is a time of dreams. Dreams of adventure, travel, conquest, and heroism. Damsels and dragons, swords and castles. cowboys and explorers.

How life erodes our ability to dream! Some dreams I had as a boy were childish fantasy, that gave way to maturity. But there are those other dreams..those that reveal our truest nature, purpose and calling. Those dreams have been battered by the incessant currents of life, slowly rounding them off and smoothing them over and breaking them into cobble, no longer able to riffle the surface of the stream.

When I endured divorce years go, there was a dramatic shift in my soul...a shift away from dreams, and toward safe harbors and smooth sailing. I grasped for security, trying to ensure I didn't lose any more. It seemed logical, even prudent at the time. Survival was the goal, and perhaps that was the best posture for that season. Without dreams I could play it safe and color inside the lines. I wouldn't risk failure or offending anyone. I would offer no strong thought or opinion, nothing with which I would  find myself at risk.

I witnessed the dreams of others dashed. Afterward, the dreamer was never quite the same. So I determined that dreams were risky. Dangerous. Foolish. Gradually I stopped dreaming.

However, living in survival mode when the threat has passed is a famine of the soul. A thief of the highest order.

Were we made for safe passage with no adventure?  Only attempting to scale mountains we have no fear of? Am I to be relegated among the timid?  No - I reject the premise of passivity and timidity.  I will instead choose to begin to dream again, to risk adventure and the possibility of failure. 

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt.

"Your old men will dream dreams..." (Joel chapter 2).

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