Youth from La Resurrección Parish in Bogotá planting a tree near their church
The readings for the Sundays of Advent, especially those from the prophet Isaiah, underscore the importance of dreaming. They remind us that the ability to imagine a better future, a tomorrow in which today's problems are left behind, is essential. Isaiah dreams, and he dreams big; he dreams without limits. He dreams that one day, swords will be forged into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and that no one will train for war anymore. He dreams of a world without violence in which the strong will no longer destroy the weak, in which wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, lion and calf will live together without attacking each other. He dreams of a blossoming desert, where the blind will regain their sight, the deaf will hear, and the lame will leap like deer. Someone, without a doubt, could brand Isaiah as naive, crazy, deluded, and reproach him for living in an unreal world. He would surely reply that the only fools are those who do not dream. And that it is always better to hope for too much than to lock oneself in the resignation of those who assume that the problems of the present have no solution.
The prophets dream. Jesus also dreams. In his case, in a kingdom of brotherhood and justice (the kingdom of God is Jesus’ big dream), a kingdom of free people, of new men and women, in which even the smallest will be greater than John the Baptist (and «among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist»).
Advent reminds us that if we don’t have dreams left, we don’t have anything.
And it is good to remember that everything (that is, everything good) starts with a dream. A family, a friendship, a project, a community... it all starts with someone entertaining an idea (which at the time may seem crazy) and telling themselves that it is worth working to make it a reality. «The struggle will be long. Let’s start right now» used to say Camilo Torres. And to start is to start dreaming. Many good things that today we take for granted and consider very normal, one day they were not. Furthermore, for the majority they were chimeras. Today they are a reality because someone dared to dream about them, and dared to think that they were possible. Someone, one day, imagined a world without slaves. Or a world without dictators, in which every four years the people would vote for their rulers. Someone dreamed of a world in which women had the same rights as men. A world where workers had a humane working day and a decent wage. A world in which the color of our skin no longer mattered.
There is still a long way to go («the struggle will be long...»). Yet, the fact that today millions of people live in countries without slavery, with democracy, in which women and workers can claim their rights and in which racism is condemned, is because someone, one day, dreamed of these achievements.
Advent is a time for those who stopped dreaming to do so again, and a time for us to consider which deserts in our lives should be flourish again.
One of the messages of this time of preparation for Christmas is, without a doubt, that we should not be afraid of dreaming in a better future. And if then someone accuses us of being dreamers, in the negative sense that we sometimes give to the term, let us remember that in reality the only fool is the one who no longer dreams.
