HOPES ANS DREAMS

We were driving down the highway when we came upon a car that had a pumper sticker that Arlena read to me that asked, “Do you remember what you once wanted to be?” Then she asked me that very question. My reply was that I wanted to play first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “Well, Bill,” she said, “How did that work out for you?” My terse reply: “I got cut from my Little league baseball team!”

Yes, I know, Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team right off. And, yes, I could have worked and worked at being at least a decent baseball player, but deep inside I knew I wasn’t very good and never would be. But I did think I was better than my manager thought I was. My consolation in later years was when President Obama admitted that he always thought he was a better basketball player than he really was.

We all have hopes and dreams. Some are based on realistic understandings of our abilities and some are merely pipe dreams based on wanting to be someone we truly are not meant to be nor ever can or will be. Michael was meant to play basketball. Barak Obama was meant to be a President. I was meant to be a priest even though I never thought about it back then.

Sometimes it is someone else who puts us on the path we should be walking. It was my pastor who said to me one day when I was in eight grade, “You want to be a priest, don’t you?” I do not remember my reply, but he saw something in me I never saw in myself. And isn’t that the way it normally is? Others see in us what we cannot see in ourselves. Why that is so, I have no idea. For me, I’m glad my pastor saw what he thought he saw.

The sad part, of course, is when we chase after hopes and dreams that have no way of becoming realities. There were times in my ministry when I dreamed of being a bishop. I mean, others said I looked good in purple. Isn’t that a sign?! Added to that, I’ve never met anyone, myself included, who didn’t think he or she could do a better job than the boss. The saving grace is that those foolish ideas never came to pass, for us and for those who would be the victims of our egotistical dreams.

That is not to say that hopes and dreams are foolish. They just need to be based on an honest and deep look into who we are and the gifts we have been given and the gifts we do not possess and then be thankful. It is also to say that dreams do come true but often in ways that we never imagined. Even if what we once wanted to be never came to fruition because we were not gifted to become that person or because of events beyond our control, we have become who we are.

What is important is that we are doing the best we can being the person we have become, being thankful for that, and not living with any regrets. That is all God asks of us and all we can ask of ourselves.