Life.

You return to your thoughts, your emotions, your work…but you are different.

I have long been an admirer of Nelson Mandela, like I’m sure most of you are. If we were to get together for coffee and talk about him, we could keep going for hours. We could discuss his personality, his character and charisma. We could marvel at his determination, his passion & patience. We could study his ideology, trace back its roots and discuss its implications. We could even talk about our love and admiration of him, how even just thinking about him, inspires us to live a larger life. All this without even speaking one word with him.

If you have been listening to enough sermons, you can probably guess what I’m going to say next.

That knowing about someone, in this case Nelson Mandela, is not the same as knowing him personally. How it’s the same in how we relate to God.

You are wrong.

OK, sort of.

After reading his book, “Conversations with myself” a question struck me:

“Would I really follow Nelson Mandela?”

Given the opportunity, would I have left my privileged context and join the movement? Would I give up my security, position and influence? Would I risk defying the ideology of the day, go against the grain and shoulder the criticism from peers?

Would I follow him then, before it was hip and fashionable?

I’m not to sure I would have. Maybe I would simply go on with my life? Admire from a distance and risk nothing.

Here you were right, then.

It is the same in how we relate to God.

In a very real sense it is two quite different paths; of admiring from a distance or following up-close.

Many of the activities we often engage is little more than a sterile study of Jesus as a subject. Our discussions about Him, little more than speculation and opinion.

The invitation to follow Jesus, affect everything our lives. It ask questions about our motives, agendas, plans. It brings us in contact with how serious we take Jesus’ proclamation that He is the Way, the Truth and Life.

What makes it difficult for you?
What could you lose?
What will you gain?

May we find the courage to allow the question to penetrate our heart, stir our imagination and inspire our action.

“…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference”

(Part of the poem by Robert Frost)

There it is again. What could it be? The cat? A burglar, maybe? You hold your breath, you listen. The sound is strange. Something between a scratch, a fidgeting , a knock. It’s trying to come in. You are intrigued. Scared. But you get up. Where’s that three wood? Just in case. You tiptoe down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. The floor creaks. Stop. Listen. Silence. There it is again. That sound! It frightens you. But you can’t turn around now. You’re no mouse. Slowly you make your way down the stairs. Making yourself small against the wall as you approach the door. Your hand slides across the cold wall, reaching for the light switch. You trip it. You almost let out a scream when you recognize it.

There it is – horror of horrors! Staring defiantly at you. It’s your dreams!

Melodramatic? Maybe, but answer me this: would you recognize your dreams if they were staring you in the face?

We all grow up with dreams. Boyish dreams center on the heroic – a fire fighter, a sports star, an adventurer. Female versions often connect with beauty and care taking – a ballerina, a teacher, a nurse. As children, we never doubt our dreams or ourselves. When we played, we were always the strongest, the bravest, and the best. Limitations, excuses and opinions didn’t exist. Our dreams were our own – and we were going to live them.

As we grow up, something happens to our dreams. We become more pragmatic. We listen to others’ opinions. We doubt ourselves. We laugh off our dreams as being silly, unrealistic, impossible, and irresponsible. We do ‘grown-up things’ – follow career paths, fit into social norms and roles, buy into middle-class values and ideas. We make a living, and forget what it feels like to be alive.

But our dreams haunt us. When we do talk about our dreams – it’s usually when we are on holiday, or when some dramatic change occurs in our life. We lose a loved one, we lose our health or income, and we are jerked awake. We remember the brevity of our time on earth. The inspiration grabs and moves us to dust off forgotten commitments to laugh, to travel & to celebrate more.

We often have elaborate excuses why our dreams must stay just that – other worldly visions that allow us to escape reality. All very responsible, understandable and agreeable justifications. We betray ourselves; we swap that which would bring deep meaning and passion for a life of safety in shallow and predictable waters.

I read that we can live in one of two ways – in fear or in love. If so, why do we feed our fear to become so strong that its smothers out the love? The fruit of fear is despair and regret. Nothing comes from it but the rhetoric of what could have been, what should have been, what if. The reason we hold on to fear is our own illusion of being in control. At least we can see, name and own our fears. To live a life in love is to give up our imaginary sense of control – in exchange of faith, risk and expectancy.

I urge you befriend your dreams. Maybe you’ve lost contact. Pay it a visit, won’t you? Get to know its origins – where it was born, its motivation. Put pen to paper as you explore. Spend time to imagine the possibilities of dreams nurtured in love. Picture yourself living it out – changing your life and the lives of those around you. Also, write down your fears in honesty. To give expression to our dreams doesn’t take us away from reality; it takes us further into it, further into the truth. We get into contact with the truth of our being – whom we are and what we are given will change our world and us.

What can be three next steps you can take to live into your dreams? Share it with us.

Can you hear it? There it is again. That sound. It’s your dreams knocking at the door. How will you respond? Will you open it?

Music cannot be manufactured. It takes time and discipline. Yes, standard progressions, useful techniques and agreed-upon time signatures all exist. But you cannot prescribe one formula to create and fit all music. The mystery and the attraction of music is that two pieces of music in exactly the same key can sound worlds apart when played in different styles and with different instruments. We often falter here in trying to help others. In an effort to ‘manufacture’ and guarantee growth and life, we reduce it to ‘three easy steps’ and ‘how-to’.

In our hurried and busy lives we run through one activity, idea and emotion to the next. We keep on taking on and picking up more, until our hands are so full that we put down our guitars. Always with the best intentions to pick it up again — someday when it all will somehow be slower and we have discovered how to make more time. We mute our hearts with the safety, security and comfort found in our predictable routines. And so we unlearn the art of making music. We betray our hearts and follow what the all-powerful ‘they’ say makes for good music. We pattern our lives on the rules and rhythm dictated as the standard — a literal deadbeat.

Think about your guitar for awhile. Do you know where it is? Abandoned under a bed? Dusty and neglected, some strings missing? How would you describe the sound as your fingers move across the fingerboard? How do you feel listening to the sound?

Do you still know how to listen and how to play? Do you believe that it’s true that you can live out beautiful music? Do you know your heart, and how to live by it? How you engage your heart, determine your life.

Often our hearts get stirred awake from its slumber without any warning. Our hearts resonate with certain words, sounds, smell and images found in books, notes, nature and conversation. I become aware of it in bookshops. Maybe it’s the smell of freshly bound books. Rows of words, soldiers in line. From a distance it may appear neat and safe — but with the potential to strike with metaphor, truth and beauty. Walking in the presence of books, I remember again that I too have a voice.

What stirs the string of your guitar? What do you do with it? Do you embrace it, accepting all the notes as your own? Does self-doubt make you put down the guitar and go on with life as you know it?

The Master Musician first created with sound — a word. From it a song of love, forgiveness, compassion, peace, acceptance, joy and life emerged. It invites us to join in. To bring our broken music unashamedly, trusting the Master to improvise and harmonize it to work. With the love of a mother, we are patiently and expectantly cheered on as we gain confidence. The yearning of our heart is to make music in harmony with others. One instrument alone cannot carry the music. We sing with U2: “We get to carry each other.” We can make music in such a way that it draws others in — in creating a loving space where all contribute and get a chance to shine. May we learn to listen to the Music. May we learn to listen to our hearts again, and learn to play again. May we learn to make music together!

The hate dimension of the relationship comes into play on the fairways (I wish) and greens. I have been playing golf for more than 10 years now, endured many troubles and toils. Golf is a humbling game — where one day you have the game figured out, and the following day you’re reminded that its math is not that simple, and it doesn’t always add up. One perfectly executed shot though, is enough motivation for rounds on end.

I’ve considered giving up numerous times. The agony and frustration sometimes gets to me. Why not just stop and try something else? Am I not wasting valuable time and energy? Wouldn’t it be wiser to look for something else, somewhere else? Giving up would be the easiest thing to do, relieving me from this emotional roller-coaster.

We often walk away from the very thing that holds our growth and transformation. We quit our hobbies, decline new opportunities and give up relationships — opting for the easy way out. We put an end to the hardship, and forfeit tremendous learning. Of course, our deepest challenges don’t disappear — they travel with us to the next venture. Without us knowing it, we always play the same way albeit in different games.

How has this been true in your life? What would happen if you had the courage to face your deepest questions? What would happen if you didn’t run from suffering, but embraced it? (See Matthew 16:24, The Message). Could the very thing we avoid, be what we need the most?

We sometimes learn and grow through the strangest things. Golf is an important class in my school of life. It’s taught me patience — to keep cool amidst great difficulty. I’ve learned to humbly accept defeat — to own my greatest and weakest moments. I’ve tasted success — the pay-off to prolonged focus and determination. The most important thing I’ve come to realize is that I play, not how I play. Better to be out on the course, than forever analyzing what others should have done.

I gain tremendous insight and growth in opening up to the help of others — both on and off the course. We’re often too close to our own life to see things in perspective. Without others we tend to make the same mistakes again and again. Practice doesn’t make perfect when we are doing the wrong things. We learn the swing of things from others, discovering our sweet spot. And as fellow students in the game of Life, we get to help each other grow in its art.

What have you learned from your sticking it despite great difficulty? What could you have learned if you didn’t walk away? Feel free to leave a comment and share with us.