Dreams and Nightmares

In the midst of the holiday seasons our dreams and nightmares rarely go on holiday.  For many, the very process of giving thanks triggers a reflection of times past, present, and future.  It is in this reflection where our thirsts and needs find the space they need to grow.  We see the vision of our dreams being played out, with hope and without.  We find our needs taking shape, even as we wonder if they are really what our heart and soul desires.  Even the doubts and uncertainties which haunt us seem to blossom.
 
I find myself dealing with a picture more similar to life in the present than different.  Good mixed with bad, beauty and wonder sharing space with pain and anguish, certainty and hope traveling with fears and the unknown.  In the mix of it all I wonder if we realize part of our dreams belong with another.  I find a stream in every dream where I need wrongs made right, injustice judged, and pain revenged.  It moments of clarity I realize I often share a dream with Divinity, confusing God’s role with my own.  It is in these moments I realize a writer’s description centuries ago is as true today as it was then.
 
“God calls for order in the court, hauls the leaders of his people into the dock: ‘You've played havoc with this country.  Your houses are stuffed with what you've stolen from the poor.  What is this anyway?  Stomping on my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt?’ 
 
That's what the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says.” (Isaiah 3.14, 15) 
 
This stream isn’t mine.  This is one part of the present and future where my role is to be a witness, modeling mercy, love, and compassion in action, and letting God deal with the evil with haunts us all.
 
My role and mission is one we share.  Regardless of our skills, and abilities, we share a calling to deliver hope with every word, look, and action.  It’s the most difficult assignment anyone can accept.  It takes a lifetime.