What's Your Dream?

Recently I was in Maryland, sitting at a Starbucks hoping for traffic on the north bound 95 to clear a bit so I could continue my trip from Virginia to New York. It was going to be several hours before the evening rush hour would end, so I was reviewing my email and working on various projects in the busy little coffee shop.

After a while, I became aware—audibly—of two people sitting behind me. They were talking to each other in tones that conveyed a clear affection for one another. Person A was asking Person B about B’s aspirations, about their dreams. It was hard to make out the details, and at this point they hardly matter. What attracted my attention was the deep concern that A expressed in knowing B. In fact, A kept pressing B “come on, is that what you really want?” B seemed either reticent, or unsure (probably both.) Person A was keen to know what made B tick, and A wasn’t about to let B avoid the issue.

My attention to their conversation ebbed and flowed over the 45 minutes or so that they sat behind me, and eventually I heard chairs scrape the floor and they left together. I did not turn and look, so I will never know what A or B looked like. But I do know that there existed between them that most essential and rare of all elements, real human compassion and understanding.

It made me stop and ponder. I’m eaves-dropping in a public place, and in front of me and everyone else in that room these two were engaged in loving one another, right out in the open. Person A and person B were really exposing themselves and their care for each other to public scrutiny.

Jesus did that. He was willing to show his love for people even though it exposed him to criticism by others. Once there was a woman who had been caught in flagrante delicto abed with a man not her husband. This was frowned upon pretty severely at that time. She was dragged to Jesus and accused. In a famous bit of what turned out to be sand painting, Jesus turned the tables on her accusers, and when they were all gone, he asked her “where are your accusers?” She shrugged her shoulders and told Jesus she didn’t know. He shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t accuse you either, you are free to go. But do this: live differently.”

Do you see he did? Jesus ran off her accusers, and then asked her what she thought. She wasn’t sure what she thought. But Jesus pressed her to “live differently.” This was loving the woman. She was meant to be humiliated and subject to scorn, and in a very public way, Jesus in effect was saying “use this event to transform you life”.

Real love has two parts. One part is not accusing. The other part is asking the person to live outside their current paradigm. To do it all differently. Most of us get the first part, it’s the second part that is tough to handle. That’s the part of love that most of us don’t get. Its hard, its takes guts. You don’t find it in many hallmark cards. “To my favorite Uncle: You are loved. Don’t worry that you ruined by birthday by being drunk and puking on the grass. Oh yes, one more thing; You are loved so please live differently.”

Some of us do get the second part, telling people to “live differently” but we don’t do it while we are living the “not accusing” part. To NOT accuse someone you have to know them. You have to know what they’ve done so you can not accuse them. You have to know what they are made of. Jesus knew exactly who this woman was. It wasn’t that he didn’t know or couldn’t imagine. He knew very well what she’d done. But he didn’t accuse anyway.

“Tell me your dreams” has to come from a place of knowing, so you can tell someone “stop holding out, I know you have dreams.” Loving someone is hard when you know who they are and what they’ve done. When they stop being dream people and start being as human as you are.

And to love them where others can see. Wow. That’s hard. But it’s not impossible. I know this, because I heard someone doing it, right there, out in the open at Starbucks.