Midweek Meditation: Dreaming Together

I want to share a poem I love, by Francisco X. Alarcon:

Dreaming together

a dream
we dream
alone

reality
we dream
together
Sonando juntos

un sueno
lo sonamos
solos

la realidad
la sonamos
juntos

 

We each have dreams, things we hope for in the hearts of our hearts–and sometimes barely dare to hope for. This coming Sunday’s service will begin there, giving us time to perceive our dreams–dreams that, if we’re adults, we might not even have articulated to ourselves for a long time. (Young children, I find, are more likely not to even be able to identify something they long for, other than maybe a popular toy; unless they’ve already encountered adversity, they have most of what they desire, for now.)

 

There are a lot of different ways to think about UUCPA and what it’s for. I love this poem because it expresses one of our main purposes in gathering as a congregation: to “dream reality together,” to join together to make the world of our dreams become real. We do it in simple ways, like a conversation with a new friend at coffee hour, and we do it through complex programs and multiyear plans, like Our Whole Lives, and the campaign for marriage equality, and the small groups that meet twice a month and take our minds to places we couldn’t go alone. For me, UUCPA is a workshop, a studio, a laboratory, a classroom, a place where we make, on a small scale, the world I dream about.

 

In the service, we’ll take time to dream, and express those dreams through color and words. The children in RE will be doing the same, along with the Valentines they make for Stevenson House residents (talk about making the world you dream about!). In the weeks to come, Kathy Swartz, who is a wonderful quilter in our midst, will take what we’ve done and stitch it into a quilt that will remind us, in vibrant hues, of the better reality we are shaping together in this beloved community.

Sonemos juntos–let’s dream together.

Blessings,

Amy