December 16, 2023
Listen:
Read Along:
The Gift of Dreaming
by Jillian Moore
Dreaming is a gift that never stops giving, isn’t it? We are constantly dreaming for ourselves, our communities, our children. There is no ceiling for what we can dream. So let’s be thoughtful with that power. We can want, feel, and be the better version of ourselves in the dreams we have. Dreams are a landscape in which we can explore anything, really. In the same way that we become the stories we tell ourselves, don’t our dreams inform who we are just as often? I like dreaming. I could blame it on my air sign, my chronic idealism, or maybe on my mother who always reminded me to not be afraid of my biggest dreams. It’s fun and it’s infinite. I like the scenes that my subconscious crafts in my sleep, the stories that I direct in my head, the problems that I dream of solving while I run my same route week after week. Padraig O Tuama’s words capture it perfectly: “The dreams we have, the fantasies, the dramatic conversations when nobody else is watching: they each are ways of the self speaking to the self.”
I recently got to see the writer and director, Emerald Fennell speak. She was asked about her creative process for writing. She described how she spends up to 8 years dreaming of a story- the plot, the characters, the aesthetic, the dialogue. All dreamed out in her mind for years before she wrote any of it down. I think that’s why I like dreaming. Dreams are where everything has ever happened, first. The beginning draft to reality. Dreams are how we have shaped our own lives and our collective lives. Dreams are who we are: the self speaking to the self.
“I dream
Of a loving world
Where we see each other
With God’s eyes:
I dream of a resourceful world
Where we cherish the unique gift
Of each other;
I dream
Of a hopeful world
Where we recognize the power
of God’s grace
To transform and make new;
I dream of peace. ”
“Lord, your wisdom echoes in the child’s question, the raw insight of youth: renew our curiosity and deepen our desire for a truth that lives and grows before you; through Jesus Christ, the Question and the Answer. Amen.”
