Reality is not the place of your dreams. Dreams are not the place of tedium. Live in the friction.


“man’s celebrative and imaginative faculties have atrophied.” In another place, “There was a time when visionaries were canonized, and mystics were admired. Now they are studied, smiled at, perhaps even committed. All in all, fantasy is viewed with distrust in our time.” ~Harvey Cox

This morning Brooks sent me a screenshot of a Back to the Future commercial we did together at East for SCS registration. It was fun. We took a minute to reminisce the fun we had then, the celebratory and anticipatory mood. I look at how things have evolved. There is a ton to be thankful for, all the relationships, and the good that has happened for students and adults, but for so much of it, I was not there in enjoyment. I was there in "the work". How many more smiles should I have given, how much more encouragement for levity, rather than burden as weight should I have given people?

Out of nowhere, I get a text from Ellen Eagen regarding her school OnTech in Syracuse. She's looking for a school leader there, and she said she was holding her breath that I could step in. It's got Jess and I thinking about our next step. We watched YouTube vids on Syracuse wondering, "can we live there?" Then a thought comes to me, "am I ready?" Can I be someone who builds up rather than tears down?

I prayed before digging into reading and writing that Jesus would help me live in the reality that we are all not getting what we deserve. This after I thanked Him for all I am living in now. But I don't want to live in it like I'm not supposed to be here. I don't deserve it, right, but I am supposed to be here.

I had a thought a while back on vacation, something that was instructive to me, that I will be living into for some time to come: "Reality is not the place of your dreams." For so much of my life, certainly most of my Christian life, I have believed that life is supposed to be grand drama, the stuff of what would otherwise be called fantasy. But that's not reality. And you have to truly engage reality in order to be meaningfully in it. Dreams are not the place of tedium. And there is the rub, the friction between the two. Reality is played out moment by moment, while a dream is a vision of something whole and bountiful, emanating its own energy without work. But if reality is not the place of your dreams, neither are the two mutually exclusive. Not at all.

And that is the next search, how to bring the dream alive again, and how to bring it in touch with reality. We should all be working toward what we're supposed to (Phil 3:12), but we need to recognize that we will never arrive. And we have to live in that reality.

Lord Jesus, as always, there is a lot going on. There is a lot to think about, a lot to do. Help me to do the important things, the first things, the Kingdom things. Let my dreams become those that You have for me, the glimpses of hope and love that You would share with me to encourage me on my journey. I pray I am coming to a place where I am able to support more than just myself, because indeed that is the place I find myself. But I recognize that you can live in a space, you can inhabit, without embracing the fullness thereof. Help me to trust in Your leading by Your Spirit, Your Word for me, Your connecting me with the Father, and Your Lordship over all.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

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