The Dreamer Begins....

Beginnings are hard. We never really know when they truly start. Most times it is the endings we clearly can see in history. But once in a while a beginning is crystal clear.

Often have I sat at this glowing screen pushing a key here or there to eventually form thoughts that no one will ever see.

Today as the TV played in the background I went about my morning routine of downing massive cups of coffee, wandering through a spam minefield to retrieve my email and finally settling a hundred arguments in my head on why I should get out of bed to start the day.

But there it was lingering in the air, the quick news blip that today is the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death (cut to commercial). Like a slap to the face on a near zero degree winter’s day, my face swelled like an ocean as I started to cry.

Music can span the mountains of time and today I am hurled back to sitting at my school desk as my friend Bunny Sexton (really, it is her name) enters the room crying. Since I was at a conservative Christian school, weeping for sinners was usually reserved for those who were burning in hell because they did not cling to the cross. In our school we were not allowed to listen to Lennon or any other singer who did not adhere to the faith of our fathers.

But Bunny did listen to John Lennon and her grief was real just like Lennon’s music. I, too, secretly would hide my 45’s at a neighbor’s house, race out of church to hear the finally moments of the American Top 40 countdown broadcast and sometimes even stay up late with my face pressed to the TV speaker so I could hear a favorite singer. This act of contortion would keep my secret special and not alert the wrath of my parents who were sleeping in the next room. (I think my eyes took a beating from watching TV from this angle.)

Starting Over was just breaking the charts and it seemed like a golden era was about to be reborn. Bunny, Naomi and I all cried as the rest of the class looked on in disbelief over our mourning. And for the first time, I stood speechless as those around me condemned his music and always with a Bible verse to back up their speech.

So today I stumble to my computer and think, “Today is a beginning -the day I begin to wipe the tears from my eyes and share more than what graces the pages of area papers or the loud drunken conversations often overheard in this little town.”

Lennon plays over and over again in my head and now on my iPod. The words to Imagine no longer sound like a pop song but has become a powerful prayer of peace for the world and very much like the powerful sermon on the mount that so many have seemed to forget.

Imagine is a prayer that all faiths can rally around. If we are ever to survive we have to rethink all we know, retrace our steps and in doing so we may find we end up in places or rooms we never imagined.

I stand dressed now ready to enter the world as an adult but in my heart I am still holding tight to my fellow classmates who believed the dreamer. Beginnings happen all the time, we just have to welcome the clarity of the dawning moment. Hold it tight to your heart. Begin.

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I am not the only one.” – John Lennon