Many scare mongers are preaching that the American Dream is no longer achievable. Maybe they’re right; it’s certainly true that economic norms for all but the elite have declined, but dreams are more personal than that phrase implies. People in all times and cultures have dreamed, and done their darndest to make those visions real. America was founded on a dream of freedom and paid for in blood but, over time, the American Dream came to mean a particular standard of living and a chance to better oneself which, if you think about it, is pretty ambiguous, and not that different than the dreams of common people in all times.
Has your life turned out the way you dreamed it would? Lucky you if so, but reality is that those years of contentment will likely be fleeting. Change comes to all of us, and not generally in the ways we dreamed about.
A long time ago, a teenager by the name of Mary had a dream going. She was engaged to a nice man named Joseph, and it was reasonable for her to assume that their lives would progress according to the pattern of their community. Surrounded by extended family and neighbors who had known them from infancy, Joseph would pursue his chosen profession and Mary would be about the business of training her children in the ways of their people. That lasted only until an angel appeared and turned the whole deal on its head. Mary had some explaining to do and Joseph was disinclined to trust that explanation until—here it comes, wait for it—he had this dream.
From then on, there was no dream pattern for them to follow; they had to take on faith every twist and turn, of which there were a plenty. Oh, they got occasional glimpses of the future: Mary was told from the get go how things would go down, and that her heart would break over this new plot in her story. Joseph got instructions about how to keep his family safe and they didn’t include details like how they would eat, where they would sleep, or how a living would be made. But notice this. They didn’t waste time arguing about the assignment, or wailing over why things were so scary and hard for them. Some of my friends claim that nothing in God’s world happens by mistake. Apparently, Mary and Joseph chose to believe that and pay attention to the clues as they appeared.
See, it’s like this. Everyone’s dreams are different. Lumping them all together in a cultural theme, or one based on geography, ethnicity, or history is inaccurate at best, and divisive at worst. You and I may share certain dream components, but pretending that our visions are identical will never be helpful, and using that standard to predict the future is even less so. Make up your mind to accept that whatever we plan for our lives will get interrupted. Go on living your life anyway, according to the clues.
We’re just ordinary people, doing our best. So were Mary and Joseph, and here we are, still talking about them after all these years.