By Gary Topping–
Among other things, the Advent and Christmas seasons are a time of new beginnings: a new liturgical year is followed a month later by a new calendar year. There is something essentially human about the desire to wipe the slate clean of all our sins, our failures and our shortcomings and begin anew.
At the beginning of each new liturgical season, Salt Lake City Diocese Pastoral Center staff members are presented with a “Little Book” of daily scriptural meditations for that season. The Little Books were created by the late Bishop Ken Untener (1937-2004) of Saginaw, Michigan, and have been revised and updated each year since his death. Advent begins this year with a meditation by Bishop Untener about God’s dream of creation, both of the cosmos and of each one of us individually. I thought this week I would share some excerpts from that meditation:
“In the beginning, before time was, before anything was, God had a dream. God’s dream was creation. God’s dreams never stay just dreams. Thus it was that God’s dream became reality, and all things came to be. And God’s dream was good.”
Then he imagines God speaking to us directly:
“Perhaps that could be stated in less general terms. You see, I dream in great detail, not just in broad sweeps. My dream was not simply creation. It was your part of the world, your family, you.
“I dreamed of you by name. I dreamed of what you would be like, and what you would do. My dream was good for I made you in my own image and likeness.”
What a wonderful way to begin a new year, with the realization that God created me as someone completely unique, to be who I am and what I have become.
(Photo credit: Intermountain Catholic)
Thanks for sharing. It is interesting to imagine each of us as dreams in the mind of God. And perhaps not as dreams that simply serve as an inspiration for our creation, but we are actually the dreams themselves unfolding independently and spontaneously in the mind of God – not yet fully achieved or accomplished until God’s dream is over.
Sort of like our own dreams. They are creatures of our own personalities which must be invented entirely by us, but yet they also seem to have a life of their own. We manufacture them, but still they can surprise us, disappoint us, console us, frighten us and turn out in ways we couldn’t predict.