Minister 's Letter - January 2009
Dear Friends,
Act 2:17
Everybody dreams, don't they?
We dream as we sleep. Such dreaming is the way we sort out the experiences and that whirlpool of emotion, instinct, hopes, doubts and anxieties which beset our conscious life, but we also dream in the day. There is the idle day dream by which we improve reality by imagining ourselves great lovers, musicians, sports personalities or perhaps fabulously wealthy. But there is another kind of day dream - one which can be constructive and creative. Robert Kennedy said: 'Some men see things as they are and say, why? I dream of things that never were, and say, Why not?'
This is the dream that centres around the way we want life to be. It may be a personal dream. Or it may be our dreams are not for ourselves but for the world. A William Wilberforce dream; the end of slavery. A Carey dream; taking the Gospel to India. A Martin Luther King dream; unity between black and white.
For each of us one of the vital questions about us is 'What is your dream?' Some of us settle for small-minded dreams of personal acquisition. Eugene O'Neill argues that the greatest failure of western civilization is that 'Its main idea is the everlasting game of trying to possess your own soul by possession of something outside it'.
Luke says: 'Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.' We naturally associate young people with idealism, but today such Idealism can be hard to find. But the Spirit is there to help look beyond the question of repaying the student loan and to look for a spiritual agenda.
If it's not easy today to dream when you're young, neither is it easy to go on dreaming as you grow older. How easily youthful idealism turns to weary cynicism. Alan Conran, writing in The Times, puts it like this, 'Middle is a dispiritingly practical age. There is a tendency to sift through the unfulfilled dreams and begin chucking out the wilder ones.' But the Biblical promise is that the Spirit of God gives the capacity to dream both to young and old. At the beginning of a New Year, perhaps we need reminding that at the heart of the Christian life is this mysterious, miraculous inner experience of power. From Him comes the ability to dream right through life.
Everybody dreams don't they? The dreams of sleep. The dreams of the day, whereby we improve reality. But there is another kind of dream, one which is constructive and creative; a Kingdom of God kind of dream:
Wilberforce,
Carey,
Martin Luther King
May we dream such dreams relevant to our time and circumstances.
May the Spirit of God prompt us in the New Year - to dream of things that never were, and say, why not?
In Christ,
Christopher White
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