Daydream Believer by Trevor Jamison

Daydream Believer 

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.” Martin Luther King Jr, 28^th August 1963 

Dreams have been on my mind lately.  What are they?  How do they happen?  What should they lead to?  I’m writing this letter a few days after the birthday of the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. which is celebrated as an annual holiday in the USA, but there are also other reasons why dreams are on my mind.  Dreams feature in the stories that many of us were reading or listening to not all that long ago even though it may seem an age since we were celebrating Christmas.  In Billericay United Reformed Church’s snow-delayed nativity play that took place in January, dreams were shown as messages whispered by an angel directly into the ears of a sleeping Joseph or snoozing Magi.  Intriguingly, the play also portrayed the same angel as murmuring in the ear of Pilate’s wife in a vain, misguided attempt to spare Jesus the agony of the cross.  Are dreams really like that?  Are they externally generated messages from God, spoken direct by the Almighty or delivered on his behalf by an angelic messenger?  I’m quite prepared to believe that on occasion that is how things work but my personal experience and my observation of other situations is that this is not how dreams mostly happen. Rather than messages delivered from outside into the empty mind of the recipient dreams mostly seem to be the products of life experiences and prospects being contemplated and pondered by the person; experiences and our personality, which to some extent at least, are God-given.  Perhaps we can’t put into words what we think or feel about a situation but our daydreams and sleep time dreams give us clues about what we are thinking and where we may be going.  Martin Luther King’s dream contains a succession of images of how things will be when a nation works out the implications of the principles that brought it into being and to which it aspires.  Are these the sort of dreams we have as individuals and as a Church?Not all dreams or daydreams are good ones.  Sometimes they express our failures, shortcoming and self-centredness.  The author, Gerard Hughes, in his book, God of Surprises provides a ‘rule of thumb’ or initial indicator for judging the quality of our daydreams: “Ask yourself the question, ‘How do I feel at the end of them?  Bored and empty, or hopeful and encouraged?’” 

I think these are very good questions for Churches to ask about all sorts of aspects of the dreams of their communal life.  That’s true, for example, of our daydreams concerning evangelism, when there is a danger we may dream more of increased numbers bringing us a sense of security rather than as evidence of a good-news message shared and accepted.  Another ‘rule of thumb’ I think, goes something like this: “If I take my daydream seriously does it lead me to take actions that benefit others (as well as me)?” Joseph’s dreams led him to marry Mary and to protect the infant Jesus; the Magi’s dreams led them to avoid further meetings with Herod; Martin Luther King’s dream led to him obtaining a measure of justice for a mistreated people. So, 2011, the year of daydreams for you and for your Church; dreams that make us hopeful and encouraged, dreams that lead us to good and useful actions. 

Sweet dreams. 

Trevor

This entry was posted on 23/01/2011 at 08:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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