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Dolly Parton wrote in her book, Dream More, “Since my early childhood, I’ve felt like my dreams were the foundation of my drive to accomplish all the things I love. It was a dream that made me feel dressed up when I just had old hand-me-down, ragged clothes…. Dreams took me from a shack at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains to Nashville and then to Hollywood.”

During Eastertide, we are talking about Hope in Troubling Times and today I want to focus in on the dreamers and how they bring us hope. Those who dare to dream of an alternative reality – other possibilities than the ones we live with day to day – are the ones who bring us positive, miraculous, and wonderful energy to change from what has been into what can be.

Dreams can be fanciful, ethereal, naïve, or even a setup for failure. But dreams can also be a vision for the future that bring hope and change into focus for what can be. Dreaming can save us from turning to despair in our darkest days. Bishop Michael Curry wrote that “dreams are love’s visions – the boundless faith that the world can be remade to look more like what God hoped for the creation.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that small South African man with big dreams, spoke all over the world. I was blessed to see him speak at a Christian Church Assembly in the 1990’s. Although small in stature, he was a giant when he spoke and his demeanor and his smile drew audiences of thousands to him… even when he spoke about topics of social justice or racial division.

 

Tutu was a dreamer. He was a dreamer when South Africa suffered its deepest division of apartheid and Nelson Mandela was in prison all those years. The funerals of the young protestors in Soweto (Tutu’s own town) who stood for freedom weighed heavily on Desmond Tutu. But he kept believing in freedom for South Africa. He said words like this, “I believe that one day South Africa will be free. All of her children – black, brown, and colored – all of her children will be free. I believe it not because I can see it but because I believe that God has a dream for South Africa. And this is the God who raised Jesus from the dead. I believe that God has a dream for South Africa because nothing can stop God.”

 

The Apostle Paul had a dream for the early churches he started all over the Mediterranean. He wanted those congregations to grow and thrive and to act like Christ taught. He wrote letters to encourage them to keep the faith and to treat one another in certain ways. We read his words all these years later as instruction to our own lives and our own congregations as instruction about the best way to live in community. The words are Paul’s dream for how we treat one another as Christ taught…

 

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

 

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:9-21

 

The language of a dream is the language of hope. It is the language of reality being changed by a new possibility. You have probably heard at least some of Dolly Parton’s personal story – growing up in desperate poverty, having to help raise her younger siblings, and having her mother make a homemade dress out of scraps of fabric. Dolly had a dream that she could rise out of that poverty and help other children. She fights illiteracy, helps children learn to read and love books by sending free books to young children all over the country – no strings attached.

 

This week on social media, I asked people about their dreams for the future and what would bring them hope. I had many, many responses – all of them thoughtful and hope-filled.

 

• Others wrote about our planet – renewable energy, climate change, wind turbines, the importance of national parks, saving the planet for the future generations.

 

• Many wrote about being kind to others, loving our neighbors, listening communicating and disagreeing with others while showing respect; loving our neighbors; doing small acts of good; to be kinder and wiser.

 

• Several people mentioned that they would like this kindness to extend to the body politic… and to Congress specifically. Socially, people dreamt of less fascism, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, anti-humanities. They want corruption in our political system to stop.

 

• There is great concern and dreaming for future generations – for our children and grandchildren to inherit a better world, where there is less war, where there are equal opportunities, where universal healthcare is available, and a balanced tax system is operative.

 

• Still others dreamt of affordable cures for cancer; for science and spirituality to co-exist; for education to broaden our imaginations; and for the fundamental church to accept all people as valued and loved.

 

• Finally, there was an over-arching dream that God’s love would heal division, apathy, and hate. And that God would bless our efforts as we move into the future making a difference with love.

 

This was a great experiment for me. I found in the many responses that I received a feeling of hope and faith! As Bishop Michael Curry wrote, “the dreamer must have a tenacity summoned not from his/her surroundings, but from the heightened world of his/her imagination.”

 

It was likely poet Langston Hughes, a figure of the Harlem Renaissance, who gave Martin Luther King Jr. the metaphor of dream language for his memorable speech “I Have a Dream”. Langston Hughes wrote about those who must run an arduous and difficult race in life.

 

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

 

Hughes understood that dreams come from a higher power – from imagination and from faith.

 

Have you noticed something significant in all the stories I have shared from Desmond Tutu to Dolly Parton to Martin Luther King Jr. to Langton Hughes? Their dreams came from difficulties. Dreams are often sparked during the hardest times of life … during crisis and heartache… when nothing seems feasible… at the deepest depths of sorrow and angst… when hope seems impossible. That is when dreams take shape.

 

“Dreams challenge wrong, injustice and violence. When reality seems beyond the point of hope, some people lift up their eyes beyond reality and gift us the dream, from which sparks of hope fly and ignite in those who bear it.” Writes Bishop Curry.

 

What is your dream? Does it come from a time of crisis or heartache? Does it cry out to right a wrong or injustice? What dream inspires you? Whose voice echoes in your ears?

 

 

Resources Used:

Curry, Bishop Michael. Love is the Way; Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. New York: Avery. 2020.