First A Dream – Sunday, March 15, 1998
There is something about looking upon the stars lighting the black night’s sky that gives rise to dreams and wants and wishes. Perhaps it is the infinite range of the heavens that suggest what we hope are our own limitless potentials. Maybe the unknown and unexplored make us wonder what lies ahead for us to discover. Or, possibly, we feel a connection with the divine that helps us seek to transcend life’s limitations.
Whatever the reason—and whatever the source of such promptings—we each have a need to break beyond the constricting realities of day-to-day life to see more of life’s and our own possibilities.
Some may shortsightedly scoff at the idea that we need to dream, concluding that we’re better off dealing with life’s givens than with what we wish it could be. But think where the world would be were it not for the dreams of men and women from all walks of life. Entire nations and systems of government have been born of dreams. Countless works of art that lift and inspire started with a view of what might be. The barriers of illness and injury have been broken down by those unwilling to accept life as it is.
On a somewhat smaller, but no less significant, scale are the millions who join together in marriage, hoping love will lift them together over the rough spots of life. And what father and mother—upon watching a baby born—have not dreamed of limitless potential, opportunity, and promise.
Yes, there is a need to do more than dream. There is a need to add to our dreams determination, direction, and action. But there is also a need on occasion to gaze into the heavens—or into whatever unknown lies before us—and then allow our hearts and our thoughts to wander through the realms of possibilities. For, as the poet Carl Sandburg said, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”1
James Bell
1Carl Sandburg, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, John Bartlett and Justin Kaplan, eds. (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1992), p. 634
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March 15, 1998
Broadcast Number 3,578