Dream Big
(This is a re-post of Richard's post. We were having some technical difficulties)
No other time is it more difficult to dream than upon entrance to the "real world" (as many like to call post-graduate life). Friends, the call to unlearn adulthood has hit my heart heavily, as I was recently discussing my felt loss of dreams and visions since graduating. It seems as though it has been progressive rather than reducible to a single moment. I've been pursuing, admittingly with hesitancy, ways that I can "relearn" creativity. Its hard. Creativity demands that we step away from what is comfortable in a culture bent on comfort. There are times, increasingly more common, where I want to throw my hands up and be gone with this world. My heart is heavy, but we must... we must strive for the Kingdom of God to be reconciled. Sadly, it is the difficulty that deters us, again, because it is not comfortable. The world is overwhelming. I think it is helpful to those against the cause of Christ for us who follow Christ to feel this way...overwhelmed, and so we settle for comfort. I have to continually focus my eyes on the ways of Christ, He is the lifter of our heads, our redeemer, indeed he came to redeem all of creation. We would do well to continue asking the very very difficult questions of grace rather than merely settling for charity as Deke previously wrote. May these questions lead to action--that we would learn to become a community bent on love and grace. Wow, the implications of that are grand, and though my dreams cannot comprehend it, we must try.
No other time is it more difficult to dream than upon entrance to the "real world" (as many like to call post-graduate life). Friends, the call to unlearn adulthood has hit my heart heavily, as I was recently discussing my felt loss of dreams and visions since graduating. It seems as though it has been progressive rather than reducible to a single moment. I've been pursuing, admittingly with hesitancy, ways that I can "relearn" creativity. Its hard. Creativity demands that we step away from what is comfortable in a culture bent on comfort. There are times, increasingly more common, where I want to throw my hands up and be gone with this world. My heart is heavy, but we must... we must strive for the Kingdom of God to be reconciled. Sadly, it is the difficulty that deters us, again, because it is not comfortable. The world is overwhelming. I think it is helpful to those against the cause of Christ for us who follow Christ to feel this way...overwhelmed, and so we settle for comfort. I have to continually focus my eyes on the ways of Christ, He is the lifter of our heads, our redeemer, indeed he came to redeem all of creation. We would do well to continue asking the very very difficult questions of grace rather than merely settling for charity as Deke previously wrote. May these questions lead to action--that we would learn to become a community bent on love and grace. Wow, the implications of that are grand, and though my dreams cannot comprehend it, we must try.
posted by David at
8:55 AM
2 Comments:
I've noticed that it's easier to slip into the status quo now that I'm out of college. Get a good job, get a nice car, save for retirement, give your tithe and be done. I don't know, maybe I'm being dramatic, but it seems as though it is easier to be swept up by the system now that I'm out of college. Grace, real love, imagination, faith, these things can be easily and efficiently replaced with charity, sentimentality, television, and wishing. I guess my point is that I agree with Richard and I think that it was a little easier to be a revolutionary in college. Once we get out into the "real world" and have all these attachments and "responsibilities," our focus becomes cloudy and it feels efficient and appropriate that an illusion of faith, hope, love, and imagination is just as good as the real thing. But we must, now more than ever, participate in the Kingdom of God.
I would agree with David and Richard of course about the ease of slipping into the system. I have fallen victim to it in some ways but yet have been able to keep away from it in others. I do though have the opportunity to see people fall victim to the mundane and the normal everyday. It is amazing that even more than the real-world we can look at the students filling our high schools and colleges and see lemmings that are following a pattern to success rather than a pattern of passion for life. For me I have been able to dodge some of this normal pattern as an American if by no other method I don’t have a home I am nomadic but I am also single and ok with that. Let’s be challenged to dream big, to think differently about life, through our concepts of family, compassion (which through its Latin roots means to suffer with), home, our service and all those things that make us Christians of the 21st century. Gentlemen we have an opportunity to be extraordinary. In the end we will merely be pushing up daffodils so I challenge us to work together to develop our faith to live in community, to worship fully, and not let this faith this life we have be ordinary for then we have not fulfilled even a fraction of our label as Christians (Those living in Christ likeness).
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