In Minnesota, January, February and March are all months that invite dreams about the future. November and December keep us focused on holiday preparations and celebrations. But once one has turned the corner on the New Year, here in Minnesota we have ample time to dream and imagine. 

The maps on our dining room table invite dreams about the Boundary Water Canoe Area. Other folks, no doubt, have their tables covered with magazines on gardening, brochures on summer vacation destinations, camps for their children or any number of possibilities that the coming months might have in store.

There is something both privileged and essential about imagining the future. A resource equation exists for much of this dreaming. It is difficult to imagine a future without some concrete sense that there is a place for you in that future. If one has never been camping, it is much harder to imagine what an experience in the Boundary Water Canoe Area might be like. If one lacks the financial resources, it is much harder to picture a summer vacation, or admittance to college for that matter. 

Yet with or without financial resources, everyone needs the capacity to imagine the future. We live in the present, but hope always lays its claim on tomorrow and what is to come. Fortunately, the historic traditions of faith are all born out of the fully inclusive invitation to dream and imagine a better world. The dreams of faith are not limited by prior experience or how much money one has in one’s bank account. What’s more, dreams fully grounded in the historic traditions of faith, always draw us toward a future that gives reality to words like compassion, love, and justice. Whether one is talking about health care reform, unemployment, education or life for the people of Haiti, no one gets left out of these dreams. 

It is, of course, tragic and heartbreaking when these large dreams of faith are reduced to an exclusive getaway for a select few, as is too often the case. Yet there are always those who catch the vision, whose tables are covered by something more than maps, brochures, or magazines of self-interest alone. It’s time to dream. What’s on your table?