Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Dreams often baffle me and alarm me, and sometimes they open a way forward.

With the start of spring training my mind has turned once again to baseball, and memories of my playing days start to spill in.  I share with you, then, that for 35 years since my last at bat in college I would have recurring dreams of realizing I have one more year of eligibility, and I was delighted by the prospect.  I could play again!  One more year!  Maybe this next year I would be the player I was before cancer, and I could cherish the scorecards documenting the games.  Gone would be the what-ifs and the laments of what cancer did to me.

Yet the more I had those dreams the less I wanted to play.  I didn’t want to look back to who I once was, or thought I was, but began to want it all behind me, for good.  Then one night about eight years ago I dreamt of being in the stands of a basketball stadium looking down on my college team gathering for its first team meeting of the year.  I must have missed the message that we were meeting, I thought with great alarm, and watched Coach Morgan begin to address the players.  I was ready to quickly step down the stands, with apologies in hand for being late and wondering what my punishment might be, when the person sitting next to me (friend, old teammate, I don’t know who) stopped me and said, “You don’t need to do this anymore.  You’ve graduated.  You’re done.”

No more pressure.  No more regrets. No more what-ifs.  A great sense of relief blanketed me, and I have never had another baseball dream again.  I was released.

Is there anything holding you back from living your best life, taking each day as it is and not crowded out by memories or regrets or what-ifs?  This is an art, I have found, a spiritual practice, note the practice part, one that we can work on the rest of our lives.

I offer this as we walk the Lenten journey and wonder if Jesus’ disciples looked back upon those days with regret.  Perhaps we could have done more to protect him?  Perhaps we could have listened better and believed more, and sidestepped all that got in the way of living our best lives?  Before we knew it, he was gone leaving us with this great sadness and regret.

The rest of the story?  Jesus came back, they sensed, and some claimed they saw him, and gradually the stories went from self-absorbed and fragile disciples to women and men who did amazing things, heroic things, for one another and those in need.  Christianity was spreading everywhere and the only way the Empire could stop it was to take it over which, sadly, it did and too often its effects are still seen and felt today.

The Church has been dreaming of those early days ever since, wondering how we can get our mojo back and be effective and vital and faithful again.  I have a suggestion.  May we stop dreaming of what once was, release ourselves from the past, and put our energy to what is now, and prepare for the needs of our children and grandchildren and those yet to come.  To me, that’s a lot more fun and much more faithful.

I can even imagine God putting all those old scorecards aside, along with my laments and regrets, to call out from the stands that we can let go of the past and start living the life God has been dreaming for us all along.

Grace and peace on your Lenten journey,

Harry