Fantasies, Dreams and Intentions

Presented by Merle Wenger
Sunday January 2, 2011

Chalice Lighting:  “We Dreamers”

We dreamers–
architects of the soul
take a lifetime,
to meditate,
sketch,
create,
like Corbusier or I M Pei;
then choose
the bricks and stones,
to build a self
that suits us well
and makes others
cock their heads
and notice.

From Affirmations for the Inner Child by Rokelle Lerner

I weave the patterns of my life.  I hold the threads, I choose the colors, I put them on the loom in the pattern of my choosing.  When I make a mistake, I do not scold myself for being a bad weaver.  Nor do I rip out my work in anger and frustration.  I rejoice because each mistake gives me the opportunity to create a pattern that is uniquely mine, rich with the turnings and twistings of my life.  My work will never be finished but will grow ever richer and more beautiful.

Around this time of year, with the fantasies of Santa Claus’s annual trip around the world complete, and the hopes of New Year’s resolutions fresh in my mind, I come around to thinking about how our perception of the future shapes it.  In this regard, I want to share my personal perspective on how I have come to regard fantasies, dreams and intentions.

Fantasies are defined as “imagination unrestricted by reality.”  There is no work involved in making them happen.  The Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings trilogy come to mind.  Santa is coming whether you like it or not or we might fantasize that when we win the lottery we will buy a brand new Porsche.  Teenagers fantasize about growing up and marrying a prince or princess and living happily ever after.  I want to have a million dollars.  These are common fantasies: a state we anticipate being in without any specific game plan, or as the bumper sticker says” “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”  I see fantasies as being more akin to wishes.

Waking dreams, on the other hand, for me at least, are wishes or visionary wishes, beneath which we can build a foundation to help make them real: an evolving process.  If I dream to improve my own life, say, to have a million dollars then I can take the first step to get there: I might take some college classes, or get my real estate license, or seek to date the son or daughter of some local fat cat.  If I want to improve my personal life, I might go to church, or therapy, or join a civic organization.  If I dream to improve the life of others, I might donate money or time to a charitable organization, I might take classes to work in some ngo charity or health care field, or I might just simply try to be a pleasant person when in the company of others.  That of course is a dream that can be very demanding.

And then we come to the current fad concept of intentionality.  Popularized in the movies The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know, the idea is that if we merely think about some future desired state, or better yet, speak the intention aloud, that it is more likely to happen, or with the most ardent supporters of the philosophy, it will happen.  I think a good example is from the book of one of the intention writers who says he was living in Hawaii and intended to have a home there.  Within a few months of making the intention, someone gave him a home, in Hawaii.  Now there is a bit of a paradox that arises at this point: is it possible that my disbelief in this happening prevents it from happening to me?  Is it possible that even if I voiced that I wanted to own a house in say, Miami, my deep doubt that it would ever happen, would keep the energies of the universe from manifesting it toward me?  Intention and prayer seem to be related: usually however, the intention of prayer is directed to a divinity, to some God, whom it is believed will grant the intention.  And most of us have heard stories where prayers were answered.  Few religious devotees talk about the prayers that are not answered.  But it is generally accepted, even in some scientific circles, that many people praying for an event to happen, can have an affect on changing the outcome.

Perhaps by now you have detected that I am most interested today in the evolving process of dreaming in this choice between fantasies, dreams and intentions.  I believe that we are often able to achieve our waking dreams.  In fact I think there are some simple steps that we can use to realize our dreams.

I could not dwell on this subject long without touching on one of the modern day dreams that many of you in this room have witnessed.  When M L King stood before 200,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, in the shadow of the stature of another great American dreamer of a prior century, Abraham Lincoln, Dr King spelled out in that eloquent delivery three primary elements of how we can realize our dreams:

He said, “There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?”   Point number 1: We accomplish our dreams when we are simply not satisfied with the present condition.

Later he goes on to say

“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.”  Point Number 2: We realize our dreams when we finally no longer are willing to wallow in despair, when we know that we have wallowed long enough.  You know, for me, the image of wallow is that of pigs walking in mud, moving slowly because of the effort of pulling one foot out of the mud, which holds the leg firmly due to not only the weight of its porkiness, but the suction of the mud.  And so when we are tired of wallowing under our own weight and the weight of our surroundings we might turn to dreaming our way out of despair.

But as we look further, we realize that dreams must also have a realistic goal–even if it is seemingly insurmountable.  Listen to Dr. King’s focused goal: “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”  What vision, what verbal clarity, what magnanimity (Greatly generous. Magnanimity is a latinization of the Greek word megalopsuchia which means greatness of soul and was identified by Aristotle as “the crowning virtue”): that black children would not rise up above their oppressors but that they only sought to hold each other’s hands.  Point number three: dream of a vision both grand and realistic–a dream that might have crowning virtue in your life–I think crowning virtue comes into play when your dream also betters the life of those who surround you.

In considering the goals of our dreams, I like this little poem by Lucille Clifton.

“We are Running”

We are running
running and
time is clocking us
from the edge like an only
daughter.
our mothers stream before us,
cradling their breasts in their
hands.
oh pray that what we want
is worth this running,
pray that what we’re running
toward
is what we want.

What are your dreams for 2011 and the rest of your life?  Do you dream to express yourself more fully with the people around you?  That task often requires that you make some counter currents in the neat ripples emanating out from those with whom you are most closely connected.  Do you dream of furthering your career at work?  Here again you might seemingly step on the toes of those who have lesser talents. Do you dream to give up an addiction?  Most of us have one and correcting it has an element of crowning virtue as our addictions put a drag on all of those around us.  Do you dream of getting your body in better shape–of being more healthy?  Remember, the first 30 days are the most difficult: after that it becomes a habit–fitting in neatly with other habits.  Maybe your dream is to accept your body just as it is: even if GQ or Vanity Fair suggest you need to do otherwise.  That too can be an admirable dream.  But each of these dream scenarios is more likely to succeed if:

1) You are tired of waiting, and sometimes we wait a very long time for the right time
2) You are unwilling to wallow any longer, and
3) You have a clear goal, hopefully containing some virtue; maybe even .

Let me touch briefly on group dreams.  I think this paradigm of realizing our dreams works equally well for family groups of 2 or more, or churches, like ours.  Obviously step number 3 can be difficult because 80 people might not have a unified desire for the outcome.  Whereas they all may be tired of waiting, and unwilling to wallow, the unrealized clear desire for change will usually have a diverse direction.  But don’t despair: think of the disparity that existed in Dr. King’s audience: there were those ready to take up arms in the front lines and die, those willing to walk rather than ride the bus, those who sought only prayer as a solution, and those willing to stand side by side with Dr king and support his dream because he spoke so clearly of a vision that had crowing virtue.  If you view a video of the crowd listening to Dr. King, you will see faces filled with tear, others with laughter, others with anguish and those with bitter skepticism.
What is our group dream here at HUU?  A few years ago in one of our annual retreats we agreed that focusing on our spiritual journey was a higher priority than to focus on our building and the size of our space.  That dream continues as our board and ministry team and each of your work at charting our future direction.  But maybe we are seeing positive results of that dream and now we will have to face the other half of the equation.  Many Sundays all the seats are filled.  Does our dream include as its crowning virtue a congregation of 92: the posted capacity for this building?  No doubt the expressions on your faces would be as varied as those in Dr King’s audience if someone stood up here and dreamed that we needed to build a sanctuary twice as big as the one we have.  Group dreams often move at a snail’s pace: that is understandable.  A snail does get to where it needs to go and we imagine that snails have few head on collisions and seldom argue about speeding up the journey.

Or think about the group dream of the United States of America.  Think of how simple that dream was at the first constitutional congress compared to now.  Is it simply a matter of having the right leader to move beyond our current problems: someone who would stand before us and elucidate a dream as clearly as Martin Luther King’s?  Or have we not wallowed long enough in despair?

The primary message I want to leave with you today is that a good life is more likely when we have dreams.  Crowning virtue can spring from simple dreams as dreaming to simply being a better human being: performing gratitudes as small as holding doors open for strangers, smiling in public, warming up the car for loved ones on a cold day, brewing fresh coffee for a friend, spending time with someone who is alone, listening to another person’s life story, holding someone who is in pain and accepting criticism from someone who loves us.  I believe that when we dream to be kind to ourselves, crowning virtue rises like mist off warming mountains under the sun of a spring day.  For those who dream to give up some addiction, (and I think that includes all of us) or to have less debt at the end of the year (that includes most of us) or to have a more beautiful home by the end of 2011 (that is my dream for my customers in my furniture store), our dreams can rise up to meet us on our journey.  If you are a teacher or direct others, you might choose a student or client who seems lost and see if you can direct new energy into their life: paying attention to someone who has felt passed by can be an incredible gift with remarkable consequences.

One final comment I wanted to note is concerning my realization as I worked on this talk that I do reserve a place for prayer in my life.  I think sending out a prayer to a deity or the universe (the Bhagavad Gita suggests that all prayers end up with the ultimate power no matter we address them), makes perfect sense when we do not have a clear goal for what we want to happen.  It makes sense that many people who usually don’t pray said that the 9/11 tragedy moved them to prayer.  I cannot summarize this conviction any better than this poem,

“On Prayer” by Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, Translated by Robert Hass

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word is
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore

They will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

I rather like the balance created by a mix of dreams and prayer: the first seems driven by the ego, the latter by our humility.

I dare you to dream.  We have included the “Desiderata” in your program.  This has always been a favorite meditation of mine.  I urge you to read it when you are alone and to write a dream on the paper and put it away to look at next year in January.  Identify what part of your life you seek to improve; be clear that you no longer want to wallow under your own weight and the weight of your affliction; and focus on a virtuous desired outcome.  By the end of the week, and certainly by the end of 30 days, you will be moving forward with wind-filled sails toward your dream.

Desiderata (Desired Things) by Max Ehrmann 1927

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.