Live the Dream

Well, another Christmas is in the books. The presents are all opened. The tree has been taken down. The relatives have “hopefully” made their way home. And now we stand between Christmas and the celebration of another New Year.

How do you celebrate the New Year? People all over the world celebrate the dawning of a New Year in lots of different ways. In France, they feast and toast. In the Phillipines, they eat twelve different rounds of fruit to symbolize good luck for the next twelve months and throw loud parties to scare away evil spirits that might threaten their next year’s success. In Greece, they play card games and feast, followed by Basil’s Pie—where a coin is hidden in one slice of pie. Whoever gets the slice of pie with the coin in it is said to have “good luck” for the next year. In Spain, they eat twelve grapes at the stroke of midnight in anticipation of the next twelve months that are to come. And in colder countries, they organize cold water plunges like the Polar Bear Plunge to raise awareness for a cause. Devout Jews celebrate the Tashlich during their New Year—throwing rocks into a flowing body of water (symbolizing throwing off all the mistakes of the past year) and then eat something sweet (symbolizing a taste of what might come in the year to come).

Here in America, those of us who can stay up, watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, give a kiss to those we love—or maybe just the person closest to us—and spend the next day watching college football.

But wherever we might find ourselves, celebrating New Year’s often leaves us contemplating—contemplating the year that has been and the year that has yet to come. And in this contemplation, we often find ourselves somewhere between reflection and resolution. In reflection, we think about the good, the bad and the ugly of the year that has past—and to be honest for many of us 2016 has been pretty ugly. And yet, in resolution, we find ourselves hopeful that the next year might contain something different if only we could make one simple change. Fortunately, it is in this tension between reflection and resolution that often the best dreams are born.

This year at Grace, as we start another year together, our invitation to you is to begin to dream again. For some of us, the skill of dreaming is trapped somewhere in the past—given up on because we’ve told ourselves that growing up means giving up on our dreams. For others, we’ve replaced dreaming with fantasizing—fantasizing about another life in another place that is sure to be better than where we find ourselves now. But what would it look like if we started this year really daring to dream again? Not fantasizing of a different life, but really starting to find ourselves in God’s dream for our future that begins wherever we find ourselves now.

So come join us on New Year’s Day. You just might find a dream worth giving this next year (and maybe your entire life) to. Let’s dream together! And maybe even dare to “Live the Dream” again.

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