Dream Wide Awake

Joelle created this collage following our trip

A couple of years ago, my daughter and I took a road trip out to Washington DC for a week of sightseeing and mother daughter time. On the way out, in the midst of our many conversations, we stumbled on this phrase: Dream Wide Awake.  While probably not original to us (even though we think it might be!), we thought it was pretty cool because not only was it kinda catchy, it also spoke to the importance of being fully alert, alive and engaged in the world around us.  Obviously, dreaming while asleep has its place, but dreaming wide awake opens the world up to all kinds of possibilities and potential that could otherwise be missed. 

I think life is best lived when we are alert to every possibility and opportunity that lies before us.  I know I often fail to see what could be in every situation and every moment of every day.  What if, in every single moment that we've been given, we develop the eyes to really see the possibilities, to see the potential and to dream of what God might be doing in that particular moment in time.  And then, get in step with that to the best of our ability allowing the Light, Life, and Love of God to land on this earth through us.

If there's someone that I can think of that embodied life in this manner, it has to be Jesus.  It seems that with every encounter, Jesus was alert and wide awake to the things that God was doing in that moment, getting in step with God's dream for creation.  Paul knew how much our tendency was to sleepwalk- to go through the motions of every day without being fully alert and alive to the world around us- that he wrote "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead!" (Ephesians 5)  Perhaps 'the dead' were those who weren't physically dead, but just going through the motions of life barely conscious to all the possibilities and potential.

I know I have my days when I feel pretty dead, if you will; numbed by a full schedule, much less dreaming of what could be. I guess I hope that day by day I will grow to more deeply Dream Wide Awake. I think its part of what it means for me to be like Jesus. And the alternative isn't very appealing anyways.