"Dreamer..."

Part 2...

​I was reading Nadia Bolz-Weber's article in response to the Asbury Revival, and what she said resonated with me:

​"Rather than make big stroke proclamations about what the Asbury Revival is or is not, I’m trying to just pay attention to what longing inside of me is being drawn up in buckets each time I tune in.
I long to sing with others;
I long to be open-hearted;
I long to trust something for once;
I long to be un-self-conscious in my devotion to God;
I long to witness something real."

As I said about "Any Love", I found love. I met God and I cannot shake that.
But there's no doubt in me that it's different now.
I'm not going to throw it away, but equally I can't deny the change.

​God is still the one whose stories I both tell and listen to, as I seek to understand more about the love, but it's perhaps with a more discerning eye than I used to.
I was a dreamer, and idealist, painting perfect pictures portraying purpose, promoting peace, provoking passion, paying platitudes, performing.

But now, like Dermot, and like Nadia, I find myself sat watching, often from an actual piano, with my love and my loss and try to make the darkness dance. I try to recapture those moments from my naive dreamer days but also honour where I am now.

​Ever since I was a young boy running through grass
I was a dreamer, writing stories down the back of the class
Now I sit at this piano with my heart in my hands
Take my love and all my loss and get the darkness to dance
--
I knew that you were for me when you started to smile
Time was slowing down, we could have been there a while
Told me you were mine, already knew I was yours
So, isn't that worth something?
--
I can't promise easy days
And I can't keep the rain away
Ain't got a song to sing without your loving
Isn't that worth something?
I might show up a little late
I'll try to learn from my mistakes
Ain't got a song to sing without your loving
Yeah, isn't that worth something?
Yeah, isn't that worth something?
--
So remind me when you can about the way that we felt
I'm still the one you call when there's a story to tell
I'm still the one you call whenever you're hurt
Yeah, isn't that worth something?
​--
I promise that there'll still be days the sun doesn't rise
I promise that I'll make you laugh whenever you cry
I honestly just wanna be the one on your mind
Yeah, isn't that worth something?

Songwriters: Daniel Nigro / Scott Harris / Dermot Kennedy
​Dreamer lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Sony/atv Allegro, Tap Music Publishing Ltd., Daniel Leonard Nigro Music, Modern Arts Melody, Songs By Work Of Art, Scottharriswritesongs

​I have been shaped by what's gone before, but it no longer fits in the way that it did.

I find myself more often with my heart in my hands, open and vulnerable, and when I do that I discover something more beautiful than I ever have about both what's going on now and about the love that I thought I knew in the past.

​Something about this journey is reshaping, reframing and ultimately reintroducing me in greater depth to the love that I was introduced to when I was young.
​
It's in the journey, the wrestling, the deconstruction and the discovery that I am truly grasping:

​"how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and understanding this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

The past is worth something, and is worth more because of the days when the sun doesn't rise or the rain falls. I will continue to honour the past journey in the vision I have for the future as I deconstruct and reshape my faith in light of what I'm learning.

And I will be kind to the me that was before.

As Nadia prayed:

​May we all continue to pay attention to how we might already be changing.
May we not just impersonate old versions of ourselves.
​May we be open to gently walking away from hills on which we have planted flags, but carry with us a compassion for the person we were when we needed to put it there.