Dangerous Dreams - Genesis 37

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.


Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.
   
  In this poem, Langston Hughes portrays dreams as essential to a good and satisfying life.  But what happens when the dream itself is disruptive?  What happens when dreams collide?  What happens when the dream seems so impossible that it causes more pain than hope?
    Langston Hughes understood something of the pain of dreams since he wrote as an African American in the beginning of the 20th century in New York.  Langston Hughes would have resonated with the Joseph story.
    Last week Matt talked about God’s promise to Abraham to give him a son.  God worked a miracle, and Abraham’s wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac.  Isaac had two sons – Jacob and Esau.  After Jacob got himself two wives and two concubines, he had collected 10 sons, by three different women, but none with Rachel – his first love. 
Finally, when it seemed like all hope was lost for Rachel, she became pregnant and gave birth to Joseph.  Joseph became the golden boy, the child of his most loved wife, the child of his old age.  Let’s read the story in Genesis 37.

 1 So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived as a foreigner.  2 This is the account of Jacob and his family. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often tended his father’s flocks. He worked for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.
3 Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.  4 But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.
 5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. 6 “Listen to this dream,” he said. 7 “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”

Love in a Fearful Land - Review

Here's another Nouwen book.   It's fairly short with a generous dose of photographs, so I finished it on the bus ride before the retreat officially began.
Love in a Fearful Land is the story of two Catholic priests in Guatemala.  Father Stanley Rother a missionary priest from Oklahoma City was assigned to a poor Mayan village in the mountains of Guatemala.  He learned their language and served with steady integrity and compassion for 12 years.  He invested his life in helping the people understand God and become more self-reliant and healthy.  Eventually, this nonpolitical commitment to serve his community was viewed as political resistance to the corrupt and oppressive Guatemalan military regime.  (For more on the political situation in Latin America in the 1970's and 1980's see yesterday's post.)  After being threatened in a variety of ways, he was finally killed in his bedroom in 1981.
Three years later Father John Vesey felt called to replace Stan as the priest of this little town - despite all the risks.  Vesey asked his good friend Henri Nouwen to come and pray for him as he adapted to his new assignment.  When Nouwen was leaving, he asked how he could help.  This book is the result.
What I learned from this book is pretty similar to what I learned from Gracias!.  Sometimes doing even simple and obviously good things leads to conflict and persecution.  Once again, I felt grateful to be in a place where there is no threat of physical persecution.  And once again, I felt encouraged to persevere with humility and patience.
In this book, Nouwen is not at his best, but as he explains, he is coming off a drought of a year and a half of writers' block.  Also, this is not his standard topic.  However, even in the midst of the martyrdom and difficulty, this book is a glowing depiction of simple love in Jesus' way.  By telling the story, Nouwen calls us to the same simple and persistent love for all - no matter the cost.
The Josh rating: JJJ.