To Vision and Dream

What is a reality of the world as it is that causes you and your loved ones pain?

Isaiah 49:8-9

I will restore the land and assign you the properties that have lain waste. I will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out!’ and to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’ Congested roadways will become places where they can safely graze, and barren heights will become lush pastureland for them.

As we consider and become awake to the realities of the world as it is, it’s important that we also hold with us a vision and a dream of the world as it could be.

On this Good Friday, there will be much said in churches and Facebook posts and devotionals about the violence of the State, the realities of oppression, the truth of climate change. And we need to feel that. Fully. And see it. In its entirety.

AND.

We must let our imaginations run wild with the dreams of what might possibly be. A world where the land is restored: where crops grow and ecosystems are in balance and humans have stopped our rampant devastation. A world where there’s abolition: where prisons aren’t remembered and justice is about care and we don’t police one another.

We must hold these things together. This holy weekend helps us do that. Today, know and be awake to the world as it is. Tomorrow, live in the tension of transition. And on Easter Sunday, dream a wild dream of life and restoration and hope and care and kindness and joy and peace.

Journal today about a reality of the world as it is that causes you and your loved ones pain. What are its root causes? What are its impacts?

And on Sunday, journal about what the world would look like if that was changed. How would it feel? What values would hold that world together?

— Candace Woods