Dream Catcher

I psyched myself out. I got caught up in the waiting. Don’t we all? If you will notice [and as I ashamedly bring everyone’s attention to], I started this blog in March… it is now July. Roughly five months. Roughly five blog entries. … I have been waiting for what some of us might also be waiting for – passion, inspiration, motivation, dedication, and many other -tions. “I just need to get passionate. If I could only get motivated. I just need… If I could only…” and here I am five months later having spoken these same empty words time and again while staring at five blog entries. I would feel more guilty about this except for the fact that I realize it is the story of us all, and knowing that you struggle brings me comfort in a twisted kinda way. So thanks.

As kids a lot of us have these huge endeavors, these dreams that we envision as totally reachable. A little girl watches the winter Olympics and suddenly she wants to be Tonya Harding [ha, rewind. erase that.]… and suddenly she wants to be Kristi Yamaguchi and so she begs to take ice skating lessons. Soon, however, she realizes that it takes a lot of WORK to be Kristi Yamaguchi so… she slowly burns out and eventually quits. She then trades in her skates for a piano because becoming the next Mozart in female form is totally reachable and just around the corner. A boy watches Kobe Bryant and thinks, “That’s gonna be me one day”, and then he realizes that, because of those darned things called genetics, the likelihood of him even reaching 5’8” is quite unlikely.

All of us, from childhood, have these huge, awesome, fantastical dreams! Most, if not all of us, were told by somebody that we were ‘special’; therefore, we would be the generation to cure cancer, to create flying automobiles and live Jetsons-style, and reverse global warming to save the planet. We tell our children, “That could be YOU!” And that’s great and wonderful and I don’t think we should ever stop telling our children that – I mean somebody has to be the next Kristi, Mozart, and Kobe. Shoot for the stars and if you miss then you’ll still land pretty high, right? Isn’t that what they say? But this is my question… what if, since childhood, you’ve heard people say, “You’re gonna make it big. You’re gonna do great, huge, marvelous things!” and then you don’t? What happens when people have always told you that “you’re special and extraordinary” and then you realize that you’re… just… ordinary. What then? What a downer?

May I propose a thought? What if the little things you do, the things that look miniscule and unimportant and lack-luster such as letting that person at wal-mart cut in front of you in line cuz they look hurried and grumpy or smiling at the girl behind the counter at Arbys or handing a few dollars to that homeless man while you’re sitting at the traffic light instead of uncomfortably trying to make it appear as if you don’t see him three feet away, avoiding all eye contact – what if those things were actually HUGE things?! What if you believed that those little things could actually change the course of peoples’ lives!? What if all those little acts of grace or mercy or compassion or forgiveness are actually EXTRAordinary things? What if it’s those things that are slowly knitting the world back together as it should be?

We need to stop waiting for the ‘big’ things and instead be proactive in the ‘little’ ones. I’m preachin’ to myself here by the way, because I always thought I would do great, huge, majestic things such as spread Christianity through the hills of Hollywood, baptize Paris Hilton in a river somewhere, win an Oscar or at least be nominated and able to give my “Aw she deserved it” face on camera [yes, I practiced], write books for the masses, and be ushered around the world to preach and teach all the while adopting children wherever I went. People would call me the Angelina Jolie of the Baptist world. These were [ok, are] my dreams. You have them, too. Probably not the same ones... probably. ;) But you have dreams of doing great, awesome, huge things. And, honestly, it’s sorta like a death when you realize they probably won’t happen – but how life-giving a thing it was when I realized that all the little things I was doing were affecting the people around me in positive [or negative] ways far more than fame and worldly esteem ever would. Helen Keller once said, “I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

So, may we believe that God has created us to do what we can with what we have… today. May we never give up on our dreams, but may we also never wait for them at the expense of now. And may we insert ourselves into God’s massive story by loving the people around us the best we can, because the smallest, most miniscule acts do indeed change lives - and rock the heavenlies.