You Have A Dream

by Tom Feelings

I love people who inspire me to hope and dream.  Maya Angelou, one of the great dream prophets of our age, crossed over last week.  People's hearts are singing her praises all over social media.  I say she was a dream prophet because with her poetry, art and oratory, she called on all of us to dream from every cell of our existence and to sing our hearts out to the tune of that dream.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is another dream prophet I honor.  When I was in my late 20s and fresh out of seminary, (here's that story) I taught at an all girl's high school run by the then wonderfully progressive Sisters of St. Joseph.  I had the grand honor of helping to produce, with a caucus of African-American students, a kick-ass assembly program in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday.

The opening of our assembly was a spectacular dance performance to Stevie Wonder's tribute to MLK, Happy Birthday.  The dancers were among Garth Fagan's best students in his Rochester based dance school, (yes, the Garth Fagan of Lion King fame, and you can imagine how fortunate I feel that I got to learn from him and his A-list dancers, just for a few years, while I was teaching high school in Rochester).

My decision to open the school assembly with this dance was inspired by a dream.  In my dream I saw dancers silhouetted on a dark stage with the most amazing light show of streaming colors flowing out of their every move.  The waking dream performance had that magical, luminous energy.

Dreams inspire creative action in waking life.  Shaping your own dream according to your heart and soul's desire keeps life extremely interesting.  As Maya Angelou said with her succinct power:

" A person is the product of their dreams.  So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream."

from "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now."