Minister’s Reflections Rev. Rod Debs, pastor January, 2010
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,…. This is our hope.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy New Year, 2010! I never dreamed of seeing 2010. I’ve had lots of dreams: aspirations, impossible scenarios, fantastic imaginations, longings of the heart. Both possible and merely wishful thinking. The trick is to see the possible within the fantastic. Then to faithfully work for that dream.
Science fiction movies often present fantasies based on an element of possibility. Decades later, it is fun to look at old movies and marvel at what technological fantasies have actually become reality!
I saw Avatar last week and couldn’t help but compare the blue creatures on the planet Panthea to Native Americans we invaded and conquered. The shocking part of Avatar was that the audience, including U.S. military and retirees, found ourselves cheering the natives as they used their mutual relationship with nature to the disadvantage of the invading army despite its vastly superior weapons technology. We saw beyond nationalism and economic interests, to transcendent moral values. Our hearts voted for justice.
The impossible scenario in Avatar was that the blue creatures prevailed, while in reality, Native Americans, like many indigenous peoples, have suffered genocide.
What is the difference between dream and fantasy? The dream of Peace on Earth, to All Goodwill, and the fantasies of movies? Martin Luther King, Jr. did not say “I have a fantasy.” He did not imagine weapons turning into flowers. Nor did he fantasize privileged people crawling on our knees to make restitution for generations of oppression. Rather, he dreamed of a possible, better world.
Avatar starts with the dream of a world Panthea in which all beings live in healthy mutual relationship in their ecosystem. The fantasy part is that Panthea is able to stand up to imperial invasion by a dying world, Earth.
In reality, Native Americans could not survive invasion by European guns and germs. But what if…? What if the advantage European invaders enjoyed had been only guns? What if Native Americans had been resistant to European diseases? Is it possible to imagine that a people with a superior mutual relationship within nature might prevail over sickly, violent, brutal, albeit technologically superior invaders? Now you have a movie! Avatar! A dream.
“With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fantasies of otherworldly delight may be mere entertainment and escape in a world of hopelessness. Faith is different. Faith is a commitment to act for the sake of a dream, even an impossible dream, if you feel it is really worth it—real enough to be worth your life commitment.
Living our faith in the dream of Peace on Earth, to All Goodwill — committing ourselves to mutual global relationships is how we “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Please come and join your energies in promoting this dream. Blessings! Rev. Rod Debs, pastor