I'd like to pose a question. Do you dream? I don't mean the dreams that fill our head at night, but rather the dreams of the day, daydreams I suppose, wishes, hopes, the "wouldn't it be great
if's". Last night while reading I came across a concept that just made me say "YES,
EXACTLY!" The book is "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and it is the story of a poor girl growing up around the turn of the century in Brooklyn. In the story, a woman has just given birth at a very young age and is asking her mother for advice... Along with some very
valuable information like saving money and reading to her child, the mother (Mary) gives some interesting advice;
"And you must tell the child the legends I told you - as my mother told them to me and her mother to her. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of people - fairies, elves, dwarfs and such. You must tell of the great ghosts that haunted your father's people and the evil eye which put a
hex put on your aunt..."
"Oh, and you must not forget Kris Kringle. The child must believe in him until she reaches the age of six."
"Mother, I know there are no ghosts or fairies. I would be teaching my child foolish lies"
Mary spoke sharply. "You do not
know whether there are not ghosts on earth or angels in heaven."
"I
know there is no Santa Claus."
"Yet you must teach the child that these things are so."
"Why? When I, myself, do not believe?"
"Because, " explained Mary
Rommely simply, "the child must have a
valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she
believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world..."
On the heals of that, I want to share another story if I may. At 5:00 today, my brother called me, and we talked as I left my office, drove home, unpacked my car and watched my kids play. We
talked for over an hour. No wait, we didn't talk, we dreamt and we imagined. We talked about building a house, we talked about septic tanks and plumbing, but we talked about what the kitchen would look like and where the family would hang out at the holidays. We talked and dreamt and talked some more. This particular dream may never come true, maybe it will ~ the point is, it doesn't matter. What matters is that a brother and a sister could sit together, hundreds of miles apart on a summer evening, use their imagination, and dream.
And so while I'm talking about dreaming, I thought I would throw just one more thing out there... Here was a dream of mine. I'm not sure anymore if the reality was really anything like what my imagination had dreamt it would be, because once the event
occurred, the dream
disappeared and was replaced with the real memory...
I am so glad I dream. I am so glad I believed in Santa Claus.
On the heals of that, I want to share another story if I may. At 5:00 today, my brother called me, and we talked as I left my office, drove home, unpacked my car and watched my kids play. We talked for over an hour. No wait, we didn't talk, we dreamt and we imagined. We talked about building a house, we talked about septic tanks and plumbing, but we talked about what the kitchen would look like and where the family would hang out at the holidays. We talked and dreamt and talked some more. This particular dream may never come true, maybe it will ~ the point is, it doesn't matter. What matters is that a brother and a sister could sit together, hundreds of miles apart on a summer evening, use their imagination, and dream.
And so while I'm talking about dreaming, I thought I would throw just one more thing out there... Here was a dream of mine. I'm not sure anymore if the reality was really anything like what my imagination had dreamt it would be, because once the event occurred, the dream disappeared and was replaced with the real memory...
I am so glad I dream. I am so glad I believed in Santa Claus.
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