Sharing the Dream
By Charles Rush
December 5, 2004
Lk. 1: 39-45
ere is a wonderful line at the end of the encounter between the Angel and Mary where Luke says "And Mary pondered all these things in her heart, wondering what they might mean." What an understatement. I bet she pondered these things. Not quite sure what she is being asked to do, surely not confident that she is up to the task, there is a lot to ponder. But she does the wise thing and seeks out Elizabeth for support to help share the dream. How important that really is.
Renita Weems says, "I couldn't
have been more than fifteen years old myself when, standing over me with a hot
comb in her hand, my stepmother turned my face toward her own and said, peering
into my eyes, 'Neetie, God's got his hand on your life.' Her words were
completely unexpected, and I don't recall them having anything to do with what
was going on at that particular moment in my life. I was getting ready for my
very first date. Nothing could have been further from my mind than what God had
in mind for me. But I knew enough to keep silent. It would be years, almost
twenty to be exact, before my stepmother's words would mean anything to me. It
would take that long for me to work my way out of the dungeon of self-loathing,
self-doubt, and low expectations I had wandered into. It took that long before
I stopped looking to romance to redeem me as a woman and a human being.
I look back on those days now, and the
fact that my stepmother passed along her words during the sensual ritual of a
mother coming, brushing, braiding, and pressing her daughter's hair is not lost
on me. In an act symbolizing love, closeness, and (inner) beauty, by
straightening and adorning my hair my stepmother passed down from one
generation of women to the next ancient wisdom, warnings, and dreams. My
stepmother saw something I could not. I remain grateful to her for planting a
little seed of identity and purpose in my fifteen-year-old consciousness, even
though I didn't have the foggiest idea of how to grab hold of it at the time.
But when I did grow up and learn how, her prophecy was there embedded in my
memory waiting for me to harvest it. Sometimes it takes the mind and body years
to catch up to what the soul knows already. It helps for a girl to have elders
surrounding her to help her see new possibilities. You don't throw away the
old, wise souls in your midst. You may need them for their ability to see what
you can't see. Every girl needs her mother, grandmothers, aunties, godmothers,
church mothers, and the women and older girls in their community to help them
dream positive, wholesome, sustaining woman dreams for themselves.[i]
What a wonderful blessing that really
is. It seems to me that the relational support that we receive from each other
is the yang spiritually speaking to the ying of inward meditative approach to
spirituality.
We have many examples of this inward
approach, right from the onset of Christianity since it was borne in an era
when the Roman Empire was falling apart and the world itself seemed to be coming
to an end. It was regular enough that a group of religious people would flee to
the outer edges of the civilized world, establish a monastic colony and spend
their lives revolving around the ascetic disciplines. St. Anthony established
such a monastic movement, and those that followed him to the desert in Egypt
went for days without speaking to anyone else, each devoted to meditation and
prayer and reflection, fasting and devotion.
I'm sure you have seen some of the
Buddhist monks that are able to put themselves in such a deep state of
mediation that they barely breathe at all for up to 25 minutes.
St. Francis of Assissi you may recall
was quite a spiritual athlete in meditation. In reflecting on the sufferings of
Jesus on the cross, St. Francis so concentrated his efforts that he actually
manifested the stigmata, the sores of the nails in his hands, feet, and side.
Thought at the time to be a supernatural miracle, this feat of meditation has
been accomplished several times since, testifying to the considerable power of
meditation that only a few of us tap anywhere near it's potential.
It is the power of prayer and that is
one dimension of spirituality that has been lifted up loudly and often for us
to model ourselves after. But, our scripture today stresses the other dimension
that is equally, perhaps more important. It is sharing the dream with others.
Regardless of what starts you off on
the spiritual journey, at some point, many points, you will need the encouragement,
the support and the challenge of confidants and friends that will keep you
pointed in the right direction.
Renita Weems says, "Mary had
Elizabeth. Deeply tied up with Mary's call to spiritual growth and maturity was
her visit to the hill country to spend some time co-journeying with her elder
cousin Elizabeth. The journey from a false or old self to a new, authentic self
may start off with an extraordinary event, a conversation with the
supernatural. But to stay nourished and encouraged along the ling, winding
road, you'll find that you need real flesh-and-blood … partners to accompany
you. At some point you have to open up and let someone into your dreams and
visions. You have to speak to them out loud to someone. Find someone who will
be happy for you, someone with dreams of her won, someone who knows something
of what it means to be blessed and gifted for special work. Stay away from
those who resent your dreams. You need to surround yourself with Elizabeths who
will hold you accountable to your dreams."[ii]
I remember you saying that you were going to restructure your weekly life so
that your family made more sense and you weren't going to just live from
vacation to vacation. What happened to that? Last year you said you really
wanted to write a children's book. What are you doing to make time for that?
"While Mary had ultimately to
grow out of girlhood and into womanhood to do what God was calling her to do
she was not alone along the journey. God sent her Elizabeth over in the next
town to help her in the early critical stages of the long journey ahead. Her
older cousin was already six months pregnant by the time Mary found out from
Gabriel that she too was pregnant. But theirs was not a one-sided spiritual
partnering. Elizabeth needed the energy and enthusiasm of her young cousin as much
as the younger cousin needed the wisdom and steadying strength of the older
woman. Mary stayed with her cousin for three months, just enough time for the
older woman to allay Mary's fears that she wouldn't be able to carry through on
what God was calling her to do. Enough time for Elizabeth to point out to Mary
all the ways in which Mary's whole life, all her previous aches, had been
preparing her for this special mission."[iii]
We are not given access to any of
these conversations in scripture. But there were, undoubtedly many
conversations. If the gospel story had been written by a woman, we would
probably have a couple of these conversations recorded and they would have been
the source of regular pious reflection from then until now. So it goes.
The lucky among us are privileged to
have people from a variety of different places in life to give us broad
feedback. It is wonderful to have honest partners from your family that have
known you forever and can see the old issues in this new situation, a few good
friends from youth, people that we live around now who have seen up close new
parts of ourselves bloom that weren't even there a few years ago; people that
are older than us, and the older we get, some younger confidants as well
because they see us in such a different light. The vast majority of us are
oversubscribed by people that are pretty much just like us, same socio-economic
aspirations and values, similar educational outlooks. The richest spiritual
people are able to cross over those boundaries and have substantial
relationships with people who are genuinely different than them because at
critical times in your life, they just might tell you a truth that your
neighbors just like you are unable to see because it is so close to all of you
it zooms out of focus.
And that, I think, is what the idea of
the Church is all about. It is a place, a sanctuary where people from really
different places come together to awaken and encourage one another. I'm deeply
aware that this doesn't actually happen very often. In Trenton, New Jersey,
pretty typical of much of our lived experience, you will have a Polish Catholic
church on one corner, an Irish Catholic Church on the next, and an Italian
Catholic church right next to it. People find comfort in people like themselves
in Church as in their clubs and other social gatherings.
But the spiritual calling of the
Church is different than that. It is about real life, flesh and blood
encouragement from odd quarters.
Several years ago we had two foster
children, Jesse and Gio. After they had been with us for a couple of years, a
family wanted to adopt them. They made a couple visits to their new home. We
talked about the transition with them. We told their teachers and our neighbors
what was going on. Suddenly, the couple that adopted them decided they weren't
ready for adoption after all and called the whole thing off. It was a very
difficult time for all of us. Jesse and Gio were viscerally anxious that no one
wanted them. They didn't understand and there was not much you could say that
made the situation better. Their dreams were punctured.
Right at that time, we got a letter
from the husband of one of their teachers. This is what he said, "When I
was one and my sister was five were put
into foster care. Our mother couldn't care for us and our father didn't want to
take care of us. We were put into many different foster home. My sister says
that some were good, but others were bad. Luckily for me, I can remember those.
After about three years we were put in an orphanage. I can remember some very
awful things about the orphanage.
"Later on my sister was adopted
and I had to stay behind in the orphanage because her new family didn't want
me. It was very hard to be without my sister. You are very lucky to have each
other. I was adopted later by a family from New Jersey. They gave me a good
life growing up with lots of attention. Even though I had a good life growing
up I missed my teacher terribly because she was the one who took care of me
like a mother.
"Now for the good part, one day
[a few years ago] I got a strange phone call from someone who wanted to reunite
my sister and I. Of course I jumped at the chance to talk to her. Since that
time we have become close again. She lives far away, so we don't see each other
much, but we are close. Both my sister and I had it hard when we were children,
but now we have happy lives. We are both married and have wonderful families we
are proud of. It wasn't easy growing up, but in the end it didn't really matter
because we are both happy and together."
During that period, my wife was asked
to read that letter over and over again by the kids, which she did. Spiritual
encouragement is like that. In this case, I can report a good ending. A few
months after that, over Christmas, that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law
told us that they had been praying about it and they wanted to adopt Jesse and
Gio themselves which they eventually did. So today, they have the rich blessing
of grousing teenagers… Sometimes new, better dreams, actually do emerge… but in
part they can because a wide train of people are encouraging you, surrounding
you, praying with you and for you.
Encourage one another to dream. Share
it with confidants. Nurture it. Hold one another accountable and don't let them
let go of what they really want to become. Wherever these people come from,
however little we might share with them from a distance, spiritually speaking
they become treasures on the journey through life.
"We simply must keep each other's
dreams alive. There is a power in us that borders on the holy, and that is
probably an understatement. But what else could Jesus have been speaking of
when he told us that if we believe in him, we will do the same miracles that eh
has done and even greater ones. Jesus took his hidden dreams and gave them to
us. His dreams became a gospel. Our dreams have the same destiny.
I am told
that there are folks
Who refuse
to dream
Because
their dreams
Have been so
seemingly shattered
Like dreams
that die at birth.
And so they
hide their dreams
In small
corners of their hearts
And pretend
they aren't there.
But as for
me
I am almost
sure
That in the
Body of Christ Church
That we call
the Church
We have the
power
To help each
other's dreams come true.
For in dark
moments
When light
has hidden its face for a while
We are the
stars
Meant to
shine for each other
And we do!
More than
anything else
I would like
to remind you
That dreams
hidden within you
Have the
power
To become a
gospel.
And it is as
important for you to know that
As it is for
the sun to shine
Or for the
rain to fall
Or a heart
to beat,
Because only
if we believe in the gospel
That lives
inside
Those dreams
hidden in us
Can the
strangers we walk with
Afford to
dream.[iv]
Amen.
[i] Weems,
Renita Showing Mary (West Bloomfield: Warner Books, 2001), pp. 31-33.
[ii] Ibid. p 24.
[iii] Ibid. p.
25.
[iv] Macrina
Wiederkehr, Seasons of Your Heart (New York: Harper and Sons, 1991), p. 176..
© 2004
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
