This morning at LIFT Philadelphia I was working with a first-time client. We were doing the usual intake paperwork, going over her financial situation, family background and career goals. Somewhere along the way, I stopped to ask her, "If you could have any job right now, what would it be?"
"Oh, just some kind of cleaning," she replied sincerely. "That's really all I'm good for."
To me, that moment was a profound collision between my world and hers. For the briefest sliver of time, my sphere of privilege and opportunity clashed right up against a life with limits, realistic and inhibiting. For myself and fellow students, such questions of possibility are a part of daily thoughts: what do I want to be? what do I want to do? who do I want to become? We feel entitled to the world, which of course is ours for the taking. We are proud of our accomplishments, even though realistically we still haven't accomplished anything.
This mindset is by no means exclusive to this generation, and I don't even think it's a bad thing. There's no doubt that progress really only seems to be made by those who dream, who have the opportunity to seek more. But it's humbling to learn from those who seem to have stopped dreaming altogether -- those who see only as far as tomorrow while they try to make it through today.
Like this woman. We sat together at the same desk and shared an hour of each other's time. We are different in many visible ways -- age, race, gender -- and have done vastly different things during our lives thus far. But the most profound difference, the one that struck me this morning, is our ability to dream.
We both dream at night. But during the day, when the sun shines, when a child cries, when sadness reigns, when laughter overcomes, when sirens wail, when music soars, when solitude threatens, when company comforts, when loved ones pass, when new lives begin, when goodness overwhelms, when God is known, then what? What does she dream of -- for herself, for her children, for her community, for the world?
Or have the pressures of a difficult life robbed her of such vision?
I know my dreams. I know what it is to catch glimpses of God's glory that move me, to hear a song that stirs me, to see an image that captivates me, to read a book that shapes me. You probably do too. And I know what it is to dream in those moments.
But what do I dream of, how do I dream differently, for the sake of those who don't dream at all? For the sake of those who see little value in themselves, how do I see myself? How do you see yourself?
I don't know how to properly answer that question, except to remind myself and the world that there is a God who cares, a God who does more than dream, but a God who plans for all his children, from every tongue, tribe, and nation to bow before Him. For all all of them to live in perfect harmony and fulfillment for all eternity. There, with our divine purpose restored, we will no longer dream of something better, but live for something more.
It's easy, when exposed to such disparity and injustice, to become cynical and hopeless, never feeling like we are doing enough. But there is such solace in knowing that I serve a God who will one day completely restore this crazy planet -- in all its beauty and corruption, wealth and poverty, good and evil -- to something eternally perfect. But in the meantime we don't just twiddle our thumbs and wait for divine reparations to commence, we work out our salvation as Christ's hands and feet doing whatever he would have us do.
And because this is a debate that shouldn't be ignored, I am not making a call for "social justice." It's a call for Godly living, wherever that takes you -- to the pulpit, to the cubicle, or to the streets of Calcutta. And never lose the vision of something more.
Dream on,
jmb
