"we've got the kingdom so we have to make way"

There is a dream that I carry in my heart, both waking and sleeping.  It pushes me forward, gives me hope, lends me strength, and teaches me the value of patience.  It is a simple dream, as the most satisfying usually are, and it always begins the same way.



I am sitting on the steps of a wooden porch, looking out past the gardens to a large field that then turns into woods.  It is early.  It is quiet.  Sleep is still in my eyes and my hair is unbrushed.  From over my shoulder, a man hands me a mug of tea.  I do not break the silence to thank him, using my eyes and my smile instead, and he understands.  He sits down next to me with a mug of his own and we observe the dawn spreading out before us.  Some mornings he takes my hand in his, other times we are content to just rest shoulder-to-shoulder, seeing i-to-i as we greet the day.

My lover and partner is a man of integrity who matches me in quiet strength.  He is a man of prayer and intellect; a man of perseverance who dreams big without losing touch with the day-to-day.  We complement each other well, both in our similarities and in our differences.  We are a steadiness for each other but there is passion too.  He is diarin without even knowing it.

These early moments are where we touch base with one another before the start of a new day.  Our hours are busy ones and may or may not be spent working together, depending on the day, so this is where we check in.  We sit in silence and remember what we are working for and why.  We connect with each other through a simple touch and we connect with Divinity through the dawn and our own prayers.  Then it is time to rinse our tea mugs and go about our day.



When I think of my vocation, it is completely intertwined with every other aspect of my life.  There is no separateness.  There is no buzzer at 5 o'clock to tell me to stop working and go home.  My work is joy manifested and I need no weekends or vacations from joy.

I look at my hands and I understand what I have been called to do, the ways in which I can best Serve.  On paper, I am a teacher but that is only one facet of the whole.  It extends far beyond a classroom.  Perhaps the closest way to describe it would be to say that my vocation is Caretaking.  I feel called to protect and nurture everything and everyone around me.  I do this in working with my students, building relationships with them and letting them know I am genuinely concerned about their success and happiness.  But I want to manifest Caretaking in all other aspects of my life too.  One of my first instincts for how to show love to people is to feed them.  I do this by growing food in my gardens and through the actual act of cooking.  I have also been giving serious thought to someday becoming a midwife or a doula.  Caretaking doesn't stop with people though.  I will volunteer at animal shelters and always have one stray too many hanging around.  And I will practice the Maori concept of kaitiaki in Caretaking for the space around me.  My days will be busy but full of love and lived with intention.

I no longer assume I can do everything on my own and without help.  I dream of community too.  I envision open house potluck dinners once a week.  I see fellowship and small study groups where we challenge one another to expand and deepen our faith.  I see folks sitting on the porch with drums and guitars, making music always.  I see women gathering once a month to bake bread for all of our families and our brothers and sisters who might need it.  I see friends that I can trust with my children and vice versa.

Yes, I see children.  Not for a while yet, but someday.  For now I have 100 students to look after and that is enough.  In the future though, there will be children in my home as well, whether birthed, adopted, or fostered.  I feel I have been given the ability to do this and it wouldn't be right for me to deny that.  Plus I already see them in my dreams.  I know their names, I know their faces.  I know the amazing things they will teach me simply by existing and I am humbled and awed by that knowledge.

Our house is little but full of light.  There are books everywhere and an old piano in the living room that I am too shy to play for anyone except the birds.  The walls are covered with art sent by brothers and sisters from all over the world.  A few pieces are even mine because I have found the courage to paint again.  Simple meals are served on plates I made long ago, and the mugs that held our morning tea?  I made those too.  They fit our hands perfectly.

At the end of the day we are both tired but our hearts are light because we have been following our callings.  You watch from the doorway as I tuck our children into bed, wrapped in the quilts my mother made back when even I was little.  Sure that they are asleep, I smile at you.  I am wearing a dress.  You are the only one who gets to see this part of me.  I take your hand in mine and lead you out of the house, across the field to the lone lightning-scarred oak that grows there in the middle of it all.  We are lightning-scarred too but it's a secret story that we share with no one else.  The moon is full and grinning at us.  We climb the oak's large, low-hanging branches until we are hidden in our own little world.  Your arm is around my waist as you kiss me and it is our first date all over again.

All too soon, we walk quietly back to the house.  You check the children and then join me in bed.  Sleep will come happily and quickly.  Tomorrow is a new day and there are still so many people to love and care for, so much life to be lived.  I fall asleep smiling in the dark, listening to you breathe.  "There are no ordinary moments."



The reality of this is still some time off but it doesn't matter.  Even as I bounce around, moving often and never completely unpacking or getting settled, I know where I will ultimately find myself.  I will know my home and the rest of my heart when I see it, and in that moment I will lay down the rest.  And that is when my journey will really begin.

This is the dream that I carry in my heart.  Always.


What do *you* dream about?