dream.

Do you know the place that is just between asleep and awake? It is a place where possibility exists. It is the place between what could be and what is. Sometimes it is the place between a sweet sense of utopia and a stark contrast of wearisome reality. In this place, the lines become blurred.

I believe the transition between one year and the next is a little bit like that. There is a sense of hope and newness that awakens our senses. We start to forget the drudgery of daily tasks, we slow down, and we take time to believe in possibility, to express gratitude, to consider. We think of ways to better ourselves and our situation. We leave some things behind. We start anew. 

Sometimes, we begin to dream.

2016 is a year to dream. It is a year to start seeing dreams become reality. For me, the conception of this potential began in early December 2015 at a ladies Bible study. One of our table leaders, my dear friend Brenda, passed around a tin of handmade gifts. They were simple bookmarks that included a single word. All the words were visionary, fun, and inspiring. I searched through the box until I found my word.

dream.

Wow. My word was a verb, not a noun. Actually, it was a command.

My momentary enthusiastic energy quickly waned throughout the course of the day, and I brought home the bookmark and deposited it on my desk. My desk... well, that is the place where random mail, notes and trinkets can fall into the sea of the forgotten. Many important items eventually end up being stored near here, but in the purgatory of disorganization, the judgment seat of things that are ultimately cherished or discarded, some items become, in a sense, lost. This seed of a dream found its way into that pile. And there, it waited.

A few weeks passed, Christmas whizzed by, and I sat anticipating the next major holiday: New Years Day. That's when the nighttime dreams began. I was a little shocked because I haven’t had any substantive, memorable dreams for a long time.

First came one very clear dream about me, an inspirational man I admire, and my glaring insecurities. He believed in me in the dream, despite my inability to believe in myself.

The next night another very clear dream came. This dream revealed some things from my past, several emergency situations, and my confrontation with fear. I was victorious. Don’t you love it when you win in your dreams?

Each time I dreamed, I related the dream, and took note that something was happening.

The third night another dream occurred that was directly related to a very real and current situation I was struggling to walk through. The images and symbolism were clear and very easy to understand. This dream helped to specifically navigate a very delicate circumstance with what I felt was wisdom directly from God.

The next night, I did not dream, but instead I spent part of my day inspired to dream of my future and to write it down. This continued for 2 more days.

Finally, last night I dreamed again. It wasn’t a complicated dream, but it included my youngest daughter and a friend of hers, happily interacting. It was an image of spontaneity and fun.

My four dreams communicated some very important principles:

1.  Others believe in you, even when you don't believe in yourself. We need each other.
2.  You can overcome your mistakes, your past, and your fears. You can win.
3.  God is always ready to give wisdom and help, even when we forget to ask.

4.  Joy is a critical part of our existence.

Incidentally, while I was dreaming of my daughter, she was dreaming too. She came downstairs this morning, excited, eager to relay her dream to me. She began telling me the dream, while simultaneously recording it on her phone. Fifteen minutes later, after extremely detailed scenarios and sometimes seeming randomness, she completed her retelling. 

‘What do you think it means, overall?” I asked her, sitting at my desk and separating out junk from treasure.

She told me, in one complete and succinct sentence. Stunned, I realized that she was relating an exact topic her dad and I had discussed the day before about a future plan we were considering. Her interpretation of her dream represented a family dream we have had for several years.

Instantly, I remembered the bookmark. Digging my way into the piles, I found it. It was just as full of potential as it was the first time I chose it. Then I knew. Things could not have been more clear if they had been written on the wall.

This is a year to dream. This is a year to give expression to those dreams. This expression will access the power for dreams to be realized.

A dream will continue in the realm of fantasy, shrouded in misty potential, until finds expression. An expressed dream has inherent power within it to become a reality. It is a seed. The expression of a dream is like giving sun and water to a seed. The seed of a dream can then germinate and begin to take on life.

“And then God answered: ‘Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message [or dream] is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming – it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.” (Hab. 2:2-3, MSG)

Before you attack the resolutions and the responsibilities, and before the busyness of 2016 begins full force, take some time to dream. Dreaming isn't about things you should do. It is not about things that will likely already happen. Dreaming is about what might be, what you hope for. It involves faith. It also involves courage to move those dreams into reality. 

In the precious time before you are fully engaged and awake -- that space between what is and what could be -- dream. And then, express your dreams. Write them down. Tell someone.

The dreams, and their subsequent expression, will carry with them the life and potential necessary for fulfillment. 

Happy 2016. 

“There is a point when you stand at the edge of hard evidence, look across to what lies on the other side, and step forward. Otherwise you wind up going nowhere.”  
                                       -- Jodi Picoult

Snippets of Time, Woven Together

In computer terms, a "byte" is a small grouping of 8 bits (the very smallest unit of information). Historically, it was the unit that symbolized a single character on the keyboard. For example...

     L

However, something really amazing happens when you put several bytes together. You can get... 

     Life

Wow. Simply integrating more than one byte creates a completely different unit and thus a different thought and emotion when you see the individual elements combined together as a whole. Imagine what you can see or create using today's standard in computing. As a rough estimate, 1 Gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes. That's a billion characters! Most of your computing devices have at least 32 GB and up to 500 GB of possibilities.

In a similar comparison, a snippet is a little fragment. It is brief, and it is a small part of something. It represents a moment in time, but it is not the whole. Time, on the other hand, is a continued process of existence. It includes you, but it also precedes you and outlives you. It is now, and it is then.

You see snippets all the time. Social media is a fun way to showcase the pieces of your life and view many, many moments of others' lives. It gives you a way to see what is happening with friends or acquaintances from near or far away. Distant grandparents can enjoy their grandchildren. Graduations, weddings, births and other milestone events can be celebrated. Even daily events can be showcased. I got a new haircut (selfie moment). It's my son's birthday. Starbucks has PSLs! The Broncos won (again).

I've been thinking of how these snippets are kind of like "bytes" of time. They are short and exist for a day, a week, and then they slip away. A snippet by itself is cute, interesting, or funny. A collection of snippets over a period of time gives perspective. It gives a more expansive understanding. It gives endurance. Snippets can form a tapestry of time in the shape of words, sentences, thoughts and pictures that elicit memory, emotion, and reflection. This collective expression also has the potential to provoke enduring gratitude.

Recently I began the process of converting my digital tapes to DVDs. In the olden days (i.e., the 1990s), we used a camcorder with video cassettes to capture significant events. A little here, a little there, until you had a single tape to watch that captured some highlights of a year of your life and the lives of those friends and family closest to you. It was a tangible expression of memory, and thus, a catalyst to remembrance. The tapes also demonstrated a sequence of time, maturity, and growth. They displayed 'what was' compared to 'what is'. They showed how far we had come. Watching the progression established not only advancement but also affirmed purpose and vision, particularly during the very busy days with young children. You had a chance to say, "Yeah, we're are building something here, and I can see it." The day-to-day journey became a life journey, and the leap to appreciation was not so much of a leap anymore.

With a smile, I reminisced my technological journey. The telephones in my childhood home were connected to the wall with a curly cord that limited my mobility (and my privacy). If I wanted to take pictures, I had to visit the local drugstore and buy 110 film which always turned out grainy and shadowy. Processing film could take days or a week, but completing the pictures on a roll of film... now THAT could take months or more if your life happened to be particularly boring at the time. By the time you took the film to be developed, you had forgotten what was on it! Polaroid cameras were a huge step forward, as they allowed you to take only 1 photo and "instantly" see your photos (mere minutes were "instant" to us). 

In high school, I enjoyed vinyl albums, 8-track tapes, and cassettes. Without enough money to buy all the albums containing the songs I liked, I would sit by the radio with my cassette recorder and wait patiently for my favorite songs to come on, quickly pushing the record button in order to have access to these songs whenever I wanted to listen to them. No one I knew owned their own computer. We used the computers that were available at school.

Well, things have changed a little, and I am so thankful for the technological advancements. I love my smart phone and DSLR camera. The CDs which were so awesome in my college days are quickly becoming extinct as Spotify and digital downloads replace them.  I'm so grateful to now have my own computer, flash drives, and dropbox. You can get access to any song, video, photo or application for less than the cost of a sweet tea from Chick-fil-a and much more quickly than any Polaroid picture.

In the Twitter world, less is definitely better. In fact you have a maximum limit of 140 characters to speak your mind. Snapchat's appeal is that the photos are there for a short time and then they vanish. No storage space required. No lasting memory. The wireless way of the future is upon us. Bulky stereo players can only be found in the attic or at a garage sale. VCRs have bit the dust (good riddance). Telephones that take up valuable counter or wall space are quickly becoming a thing of the past. 

In the midst of all this wonderful technology, there are questions that plague me for our present generation. Are we losing something of the beauty and richness of the preservation of the whole of time in our pursuit of the celebration of a moment in time? As we walk the road of instant communication, are we losing the ability to step back and see the big picture? Are we setting ourselves up to forget?

November is the month we try to focus on remembering and on thankfulness. It is a month that can get lost in the seasonal transition from fall to Christmas. In like manner, I wonder if we are getting lost in the technological transitions. Despite the amazing technology that allows me to write and post this blog which can be read by hundreds of people in a moment of time, I'm curious about how we, as a generation, maintain a long-term approach to time. 

Today, as you post that 10 second video, Instagram your favorite photo, or tweet your thought for the day, consider taking the time to invest in the preservation of those memories. A photo album or an iMovie compilation of clips can give your future teen a cool look at their childhood odyssey.  A personal journal or blog can be a lasting testament to everyday thoughts and feelings as you walk through both joyous times and difficult ones. Yes, it takes a little more time than a post. It is an intentional investment of time, but in my opinion, a worthy one. It is a way of living in the moment, while reflecting on the past and building for the future. 

You can create something bigger than the moment, something bigger than yourself. Not only will it afford you a more significant perspective of time, it will capture and preserve small moments of time and weave them into a beautiful picture. You can take the 'L' and transform it into 'Life.' Something for you. Something for those who enjoy life with you. Something for those who come after you. A legacy that remains. A legacy of time and of gratitude.