I remember a poem from my high school days that talked about dreams. It asked what happened to unfulfilled dreams. There were two options I think of what may happen. The first, if I remember correctly, was a comparison to a syrupy sweet that had been in the sun. As to the second, well, I’d have to revisit the words of Langston Hughes to find out. At the moment there’s only a Scripture verse from Proverbs stuck in my mind replacing the end of the poem. It says: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Dreams are important but I guess I don’t have to tell anyone that, or at least I shouldn’t have to. Do you have dreams and goals you’re working on? As I’m writing I’m thinking of children born in circumstances where there is a seemingly never ending cycle of chaos and poverty. Children who have never seen that there is a different world just beyond the place they call home. Do they have dreams and hope? How would those dreams compare to those of other children who only know the definition of poverty but have been shielded from it.
What about the people in our neighborhoods or those we pass on the roads in our haste to get about our lives and live our dreams. How about those children in the orphanage a few blocks away or those on the children’s ward in our local hospital? I’m even thinking of the elderly people there too. And while I’m at it, how about the very people we live with. Are we so busy in our lives that we may actually be missing out on what’s in front of us?
I’ve heard it said that we came into the world with nothing and we will leave with nothing. But what if we are born with dreams and hope and what if we eventually die with our dreams because they went unfulfilled and ran over like that syrupy sweet. What if each time we missed out and our hope began to fade our very lives were fading too. How can we see fading dreams and dying hope in ourselves and others? And do we have a minute to care?
Let’s talk life. 