Imagine

Bo: Exodus 10:1-3
The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart
(written 1/28/12)

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." -- John Lennon

It's supposed to be hard.

Really. I'm sorry.

Sometimes it seems like we are going to make it through by the third plague, be able to let that last hurdle be the hardest -- not the one we know still lies ahead, just over there, the one we dread facing but know we must. That's when we truly turn to God, dream to God, call to God, pray to God, rely on God to help us over the fence or across the sea or into the great unknown that holds for us the fear of alone and unworthy; but also the promise of free and brave, holy and beautiful, complex and sweet and actually free.

Imagine.

We always try the easier way first. We're human. Slowly, we learn.

As we learn we believe, we doubt, we waver, we grow stronger, we dream.
Inside and out loud.

Sometimes we lament, "God, why so HARD? Why make slavery even MORE difficult to leave? Why do this to us?"

The answer? Today, for me, because freedom is layered and awkward, with phases and stages, and we MUST learn to keep going, brave or not, to imagine, to dream, to merge the dreamer and the do-er, bite back against fear, agony at our backs, we must remember what slavery does to the soul, the collective soul, the past and present and future soul, and we must remember our dreams, our light, our task.

To be a light, a nation of priests and priestesses, to lead through our fear, assert our knowing that there IS something more.

God moves us into action against all Pharaohs and we must find our way into the wholeness of the dream, and the real of freedom.