It is hard to believe. We're still saying, “Happy New Year,” yet we are now ready to mark Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 17th. Every year, many tributes to Dr. King include references to his “I Have A Dream” speech.
Does Dr. King's statement “I have a dream….” make him a dreamer? In searching for the meaning of the word “dreamer,” I found definitions such as idealist, fantasizer, castle builder, wishful thinker, space cadet, reformer, stargazer optimist, escapist…visionary. Definitions and synonyms abound, but common to every dreamer is a knowing that we must live in the love of what we may never see.
There is a song called The Dreamer, The Tree And Me by Kathy Sherman, CSJ. The lyrics speak to me of what it means to be a dreamer:
I walked one summer morning under a water-colored sky
When I beheld a full and lovely tree,
I ate from her bough the date she offered me.
And to my surprise, she spoke to me.
“Would you like to hear the story of how I came to be?
I was a seed full of promise,
but I would take some eighty years to grow.
So I needed a dreamer to plant and to risk.
A dreamer who believed it could be so.
Now the dreamer must have known it was doubtful
that I would bear fruit before the dreamer died,
but the great love for the dream seed made it worth it anyway.
Others after me will know the reason why.”
Yes, I've always known that we must live
by the love of what we may never see.
Yes, I've always known that we must live
by the love of what we may never see.*
I encourage you to listen to the entire song at Ministry of the Arts.
Is there a dreamer and a planter and a seed inside of you or me? What a tribute it would be to Dr. King if we would choose to gather with the dreamers and then trust totally in our Creator God who loves each of us into being.
*Excerpt of The Dreamer, the Tree and Me. Music and Lyrics by Kathy Sherman, CSJ. © LaGrange Park, IL: Ministry of the Arts, Sisters of St. Joseph of LaGrange, ©1991. You may find the lyrics for the entire song here.
– Sister Bridget Kiniry, OP
A resident of Dominican Convent, Sister Bridget is a
coordinator of the Days for Girls program there.