Dream a Little Dream...

Today marks a new year - it's time for 2026.

I am not much of one for resolutions - they are too easily broken. And, I'm not so much into finding a "new me" - I'm more interested in discovering the me I already am and taking care of her. But I do love to dream and plan - and I find January to be a good time to take stock of what a new season of life might hold.

Maybe you feel similarly. What are you dreaming about for the year ahead?

When I think about dreams, I also think about Joseph in the Bible. Joseph is one of the youngest of Jacob's sons, and he has the gift - and the curse - of being a dreamer. Like father, like son. Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven in Genesis 28, symbolizing abundant blessings to come. By Genesis 37, Joseph is having powerful dreams of his own - and they aren't making him popular within his family:

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. 5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Here's the thing about dreams. Whether they are sleeping or waking dreams - they can have consequences. Joseph doesn't seem to know how to read the room when he shares his dream - and he keeps sharing them. His brothers hate him, so much so that they plan to kill him but decide to just sell him into slavery instead and make bank. Then they sit on their secret for years and years. Jacob thinks Joseph is dead.

The remaining chapters of Genesis cover Joseph's story - and there are definite highs and lows. His gift of dreaming is both a blessing and a curse. He suffers and he succeeds. It isn't an easy path whatsoever.

As we set off into 2026, I'd challenge you to take some time to dream. To sit in at least a few moment of silence and consider your dreams, and to recognize that dreaming is both delightful and dangerous. It isn't easy to bring dreams to life - and yet, it is so much harder to ignore them.

In her Ted Talk “Your Elusive Creative Genius,” author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the ways humans are inspired and hold responsibility for creative acts. She warns us that ideas come from spaces bigger than our own souls. Gilbert says, "I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel, you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance."

As you start to dream, get quiet. Make some notes. Then listen. Sit still and listen. Ask what you are being invited into. What is asking for your time and attention? Where is God calling you? One thing I remind friends a lot of during meditation is that when we pray it happens two ways - we express our needs, but then we also should wait for God to respond.

Have the courage to ask - and to listen. To sit still as we turn the symbolic page of today - and see where you might be a partner in making this world a better, kinder, more loving place.