Lovers, dreamers-- and you.

[Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord. . . . When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, 

and I was not aware of it.” 

He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” 

--Genesis 28:12-13; 16-17

(I am back. Seems like I haven't blogged in about a decade. Ideas would come and go, and life would nose its way in and divert my attention. And because I didn't immediately jot down any ideas . . . well . . . gone with the wind.) 

We lost another beautiful voice recently. Singer and storyteller Pete Seeger has joined Abraham, Martin and John in the eternal Peace Walk. He will be deeply, sorely missed. 

I remember watching "Reading Rainbow" with my kids, and Pete Seeger read/ sang his picture book Abiyoyo. So much fun. (You can see/ hear it here.) Mr. Seeger always seemed to be such a gentle man, in voice, in spirit and in manner. Always gentle-- but never weak.

Always, he seemed to have an unshakeable dream, a vision that he refused to give up. And always, he would give voice his dream with gentle, firm conviction, as though in his mind, in his life, it was already a reality. His banjo bore these words:

This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

And in his music, with every strum and every note, you got the feeling that the threads of love and peace were being woven into a beautiful new fabric, stronger, more beautiful and more desirable than any other.

But before he could sing about it, he had to believe it. Had to envision it for himself, so he could share the dream with others. Had to be able to imagine the dream as reality, or it was all fluff and bother; otherwise, those who hadn't the vision could easily "yes, but" it out of existence and silence the hope.

Ah, those dream-killers. The person in the crowd who cries out to the magician, "I see what you've done there," breaking the spell, reminding the audience of the "laws" of reality. 

Sigh.

Everything was begun as a dream. Arguably, even God, in the Genesis narrative, had Something In Mind when he first began creating all that is-- out of nothing. When chaos moved across the waters, it was a dream of magnificent proportions that brought order to the chaos.

For Pete Seeger, the dream began with an "if": If I had a hammer. If I had a bell. If I had a song to sing. And then the assertion: I have a hammer, and a bell-- and a song to sing. A dream to dream, a gift to share all over this land.

Pete Seeger's dream for peace lives on. His desire for all humanity to live in harmony continues, even as his own banjo has fallen silent. Because the thing about dreams is, they're contagious. They can catch fire and spread, pick up steam and grow, until bit by bit, they are no longer dreams, but the New Reality.

Oh, sure, along the way the yammering "Yes, Buts" and the lonely "If Onlies" will try to drown out the dreamer's voice. But they only win when we listen and believe that their fearful questions are greater than our desire to share the dream.

Dare to dream. Share your dream. You are not alone. In fact-- that's the dream, isn't it? That all may be as one?

Gracious God, we pray that our desire to be together will always be stronger than our desire to be divided. Help us to listen--and to speak. Amen

Lovers, Dreamers and You