Yeah, I know.
Love and dreams. We tend to change our perspective on both as we bump along in life, age, and, supposedly, get wiser.
As I was inhabiting the character of Bananas, I was very young, very green. A college girl.
And love, dreams, and yeah, faith, were much simpler.
More childlike?
Or was I just childish?
A mixed bag, probably.
Nevertheless, who I was then had an untested, an untried concept of love, dreams, and faith.
Although I had been through a lot, including abuse and eating disorders, at that time, I had not had the wizened breath knocked out of me yet.
Not like one experiences as they just “keep living.”
Therefore, I approached my role as Bananas the same way I approached these larger ticket items.
I learned my lines, not investing much past that.
“I love you, so I keep dreaming.”
There’s a lot of faith in that character’s offkey lyric.
The first element?
Love:
“We love each other because he loved us first.”
1 John 4:19
Keep in mind, at this time in my college experiences, I was woefully unaware of Scripture.
Probably like a lot of us out there, I knew “the basics.”
John 3:16.
Genesis- Creation of The World.
The “concept of love” from an All-Encompassing Deity/Father to us all, while being so mysterious and hard to fathom.
There’s still a lot of that last point kicking around in my faith walk now.
Faith walk, in general, I suppose, is the argument that could be made in an ongoing way.
But, as I was a theatre major, I was not exactly poking under the hood all that much on this stuff.
Again, like many of us out there, I was coasting, I was relying on things like my denominational background, my praying mother, my sporadic church attendance, and my false sense of security that I knew “enough” about this faith stuff to get along okay.
Not addressing, however, things like my disordered eating, and my distorted concepts of love (just the “Daddy Issues” alone, that I had were challenge enough), let only a “Heavenly Father” love?
Yeah, that was not happening.
“We love each other because he loved us first.”
1 John 4:19
I did not know about this Scripture’s existence.
And knowing it much earlier than I happened upon it, years later, could have possibly helped my formative years immensely.
Earning love and worth, with and without the vehicle of eating disorders, again, unconsciously had me believing and pursuing that I needed to “get” The Most High’s love.
I had to earn it.
It was foreign to me, and it still challenges me now, to accept and rest in the Truth that He Loves me and chose me first.
Our Heavenly Father.
Yahshua.
Both/And.
Because, after all…
“I and The Father are One.”
John 10:30
So, even though, back then, rehearsing and playing Bananas, singing “I love you, so I keep dreaming,” I still was insecure in His Love.
I’m getting better at it, years later.
But the performance based/conditional love has a challenging vice grip.
I’m not going to lie.
Still, that is the baseline.
Getting the love thing, His Love thing, straight, or at least, addressed.
We all fall short of The Glory (Romans 3:23).
Yeah, so that’s some love stuff.
Moving on to some of the “dream” issue.
“I love you, so I keep dreaming.”
“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which The Most High has prepared for those who love Him.’”
1 Corinthians 2:9
Youth makes dreaming easier.
We have not gotten the stuffing kicked out of us quite yet.
We can more easily believe in possibility. In hope. In a good life that is undeniably ours.
It’s more difficult, however, to maintain that sense of dreams coming true as we age.
We see, indeed, how some dreams go by the wayside.
Curveballs. Plot twists. Catastrophes.
We keep living, and, on some level, we experience these things.
And that often goes in tandem with our love experiences.
We see, as we age, how our hearts get broken.
We see, as life moves along, how what and who we were enthusiastic about now has made us gun-shy.
We had not counted on complication, at least, not at first.
However, a lot of us soon start racking complications, more than one, more than two, more than five.
Try in the two-or- three-digit range.
Sometimes, it looks like there is nothing but mess.
No dreams. No bankable love.
And faith?
Come on! Faith in… or for… what, exactly?
Again, being ignorant to so much Scripture, “once upon a time,” I knew nothing about verses like Jeremiah 29:11…
“For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Let’s get real. Most of us have a big Punisher view of The Most High.
We can tend to view Him at the least, as disinterested in us, and, at most, wanting to smite us at the least infraction.
Mercy?
Grace?
Help?
HA!
Forget it! We don’t see evidence of those things playing out in our lives, so much of the time.
We see punishment.
And that includes the realm of our dreams.
But no matter what, part of the human animal possesses some stubborn ability to hope and dream.
There is something we want.
Several somethings, in fact, even if/when we are beaten down by life.
“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which The Most High has prepared for those who love Him.’”
1 Corinthians 2:9
Theatre possessed some of my dreams years ago. And, as I was onstage, I felt things in motion.
I prayed and thanked Him for what was occurring, as paltry as those acknowledgments were.
But I hadn’t experienced the peak and valley thing fully yet.
Peaks and valleys.
You know, life.
So, 1 Corinthians 2:9 may have seemed too unrealistic, as I became more cynical and jaded.
Yeah, maybe, “once upon a time.”
And then, over time, gradually and more comprehensively…
“Yeah, that’s great for others, but not for me.”
Recognizing yourself here yet?
Come on. We talk ourselves out of those dreams.
“Then Peter replied, ‘I see very clearly that The Most High shows no favoritism.’”
Acts 10:34
No preferential treatment.
It is not lost on me how this verse is in The Book of ACTS!
Action. Doing things. Pursuing things. Deeds.
Let that sink in a bit.
“I love you, so I keep dreaming.”
“Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.
Proverbs 16:3
And that leads us to the committing of our dreaming… to Him?
Again, back then, when I was Bananas, I was not aware of the power of committing anything TO Him.
Yeah, sure, I prayed begging prayers, like we pray…
“Just please do this, gimme that…”
But it was all grabby.
There was not any commitment. There was no sense of entrusting something that was weighty and important.
It was short-sided. Selfish. Immature.
And I would LOVE to say that I have completely grown past all of that, that I am, indeed, so wise, on the mountain top.
I am no longer a selfish fool?
Well…
“For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”
Galatians 5:17
As I type this, at 9:31 in the morning.
