Skip to main content

Awake in Someone Else's Dream?

Waking up in the middle of someone else's dream presents you with some options.

You can wonder about your role in the story and play it out to the end.

You can lament your talents used in the opportunity not your own.

You can rage against your time lost in fulfilling someone else's destiny.

Or you can do something else.

What if the dream had something to do with what you wanted to do, but didn't know it yet?

What if it was part of your life purpose and was a journey on the way?

What if you had a part to play in the moment and have to be still to see it?

I was sitting in my office the other day and this thought occurred to me as I was reading the news. The news that overlaps into other people's existence. Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Utah, and now Louisiana have made decisions that alter the possibilities of millions of young women with a dream.
It was something that had me wonder about purpose, power, and potential.

In my faith belief, I hold that everyone is divinely created, that living human beings have a unique purpose on earth, but that purpose rests in the choices one makes in life. We are not just cogs in a wheel or puppets in a play. There are environmental circumstances that can derail those choices, some of those effects can happen when one is young and beyond the opportunity to choose for self. Others happen once adulthood is reached and fear sets in to cloud out hope. Yet, I have faith in the possible.

Emily Dickinson wrote, "I Dwell in Possibilities."

Those possibilities exist as not just dreams but choices that may take risks or saying no to some things while saying yes to others.

One can still decide. One is never too old. Or too anything to not stop and do something different.

So, being awake in someone else's dream might not be a bad thing. It could just be that necessary part of making your dreams come true.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hannah's Song

We came together last night and sang Hannah's song. Family from California was in town, it was the night before Aunt Hannah's Home Going Celebration. We met at my house late in the evening to fellowship, remember, hug, eat, and laugh. Thom felt the love in the room and I'm sure his mom would've appreciated us doing what she did all her life - love. Aunt Hannah was a gracious woman. Her gentle spirit, sparkling eyes, and constant smile will be remembered. She has left us physically, but never spiritually. The laughter was like music in Thom's ear. For the first time in weeks I saw my cousin relax. He has been in a tornado for the past four weeks from his mother's diagnosis to her death. Even in her final stage, Aunt Hannah was granted her desire. She asked to not suffer long when it was her time to go, she had been a caregiver her whole life and I'm sure her prayer was for her son. In the last days of her life, she still greeted well wishers with a wa...

Brothers, Can we Talk?

 I'm a Black woman, born of a Black woman and a Black man. When my mother died, it was my father who nurtured me and instilled in me a sense of pride of self, of my race, of my abilities to do whatever I put my mind to do. He never imposed limitations on me as a Black woman. The only caution he ever gave me was to not burn my candle at both ends and to be mindful of my health, I am an asthmatic. He never stopped me from trying anything and always encouraged me. Daddy was a strong Black man who introduced me to Shirley Chisholm when I was a little girl. He reminded me of the fortitude of my late mother's quest for gender equality in the workplace and of the namesake who marched at Selma.  He is the one who gave me my pseudonym, TayĆ©. Daddy was a strong tower of empowerment and fought all the way to his last breath for social, gender, and racial justice. It is in remembering my father this morning that I'm asking the brothers, can we talk? What is it, especially those of my g...

Ashes to Ashes

 This is Ash Wednesday. For a lot of Catholics and Anglican Christians, it begins the holy season of Lent. We remember we are but dust and to dust we return, ashes to ashes.  It is a somber reminder of our humanity and the finality of life. We are a mere breath. Today, as a Hospital Chaplain Resident, I am imposing ashes on patients, family, and staff. It is a visible marker of a shared faith and belief. We look with anticipation to the finished work of salvation on the cross and in eager hope of the resurrection. As my day progressed, I noticed how much hope was in the eyes of the ones giving and receiving this reminder of our existence. It was both a somber moment and a joyful moment. Two things can exist at the same time. Like the world we find ourselves in. Even as it seems like the darkest, certainly the darkest I’ve known in my six decades on this earth. Completely imperfect as a nation, there was still a glimmer of light until the nightmare became reality. We wonder abo...