Day Thirteen - April 13, 2020
Today I awoke to pouring down rain and barreling winds. There was no morning walk, only piles of laundry to walk about all day!
The sun made it’s glorious appearance late afternoon… after sitting all day behind brooding black clouds… the wind continues to roar late into this evening - reminding us that nature has a Force greater than any virus found on Earth!
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A long rainy day with loads of paperwork, writing papers, teaching a class… On my short drive home from delivering dinner to my mom, the sun finally broke through the clouds. I had just turned onto a familiar road where a major amount of construction work is usually taking place. There are huge million square foot warehouses and a few open fields nearby, but today I didn’t pass one car.
Above the mostly silent warehouses, the sun broke free casting beautiful rays of light in all directions… I pray for our country! Our world! While I understand the current measures in place are intended for our health and well-being - there is a silent internal demise of the psyche and soul of so many.
I spent about two hours today coaching Daniel through a writing assignment for a college writing class. He is not one who can off-handedly write to simply fulfill a given assignment - he writes to an internal compass that drives him to find meaning and purpose for just about everything. While this might sound noble - it carries a weight and burden that can often overwhelm him… and so I find that often I need to spend a long time helping him find methodology to express the intrinsic research he puts into most of his work.
Today’s topic was a literary comparison of two works from his class. He chose the theme: “Dream Deferred vs Driven by a Dream.” In some of my own recent classes, I have been studying the practice of forming “idols” in our lives… I was so grateful for these classes as they provided so many great resources to share with Dan today. The main idea we took from today’s lesson was that generally an idol is a good thing - that we have made an ultimate thing. Should we lose it, we would lose the will to live.
Sometimes our dreams are deferred… set aside for one reason or another - some of those reasons are made by external forces never giving us a chance to choose. An illness, injury, death, job-loss, divorce, move, betrayal…a pandemic. And sometimes we are driven by a dream or goal to the extent that there is nothing more significant to us. It has become an ultimate thing… We are bound and enslaved to it.
As I drove along the empty roads, passing closed businesses and silent parking lots… I thought of Dan’s writing assignment - “Dreams Deferred.” Proverbs says, “Hope deferred makes the heart ill.” When a dream drives us, enslaves us, makes us its master... and, for whatever reason, is taken from us - we can easily lose the will to fight - to live.
But HOPE… Hope triumphs all! Hope infuses dreams but is not the dream itself. Hope energizes dreams, encourages dreams, fuels dreams… True HOPE lies in a person - the Creator. It is a living and breathing being who fights on our behalf to bring about good in all things. It rages like today’s wind in the midst of troubles and storms to wash away fear and despair. Hope is found in a personal relationship with God who loves unconditionally. Hope is HIDDEN in dreams - but it is not the dream.
As I pulled into my driveway after what feels like such a very long and emotional day… I saw the beautiful colors of various flowers reaching for the sky!
Reaching out towards the Light! Reaching for HOPE.