Dreamer

Genesis 37:17-20

          I'd been caught! I had been skipping down the street whistling and singing a tune and my neighbor had heard me. She was sitting on her screened porch and she saw me. She later told me how wonderful it was to hear me. She recognized a joyful spirit in me and rather than make me feel embarrassed, she wanted to let me now how happy it made her feel.  This kind of behavior on my part was just a small hint of what made me different from all the other kids.  I played 'army', rode bikes and played at the park with friends, but I was always a bit different, I felt it and I knew it. What was it? It took me almost 50 years to figure that out. 

           When I met my husband and later as we became friends and even later, more than friends, we both realized that each had longed for each other our whole lives.  Not only was I uneasy my whole life for being gay (and not having any idea of it in concrete terms), I also searched for a wholeness I never knew. That's not to say I did not have many happy, holy years filled with joy. They were all formative and loving and all of it is journey and part of what makes me who I am today. But I was a dreamer my whole life. I dreamed of a wholeness I could not identify.

        I can tell you that I empathise with Joseph, the dreamer in this passage that his brothers threw him into a pit. I wonder if he was gay too?  Dreamers never give up hope. Sometimes they have hope and dreams in nondescript terms like I did for so long but something keeps them going, drives them to wholeness. For me that was God. God was my strength and my rock.  God stood by me as I lived and dreamed those nondescript dreams.

       The dream that come true was me acknowledging being gay and coming out, to dare living out and proud. It was not until I came out and loved myself as God created me that I could enter into a relationship with another that was activated not just by being a good and loving person (which I am and always was) but also by being a gay man and all that it entails. More than an accusation of an act by some haters, being gay is  perspective and a way to love that is not limited or defined by one act as haters seem to view their heterosexuality.

      The dream had come true when I met the man that apparently lived a similar life of growth and experience in his own way. His preparation for me was as perfect as my preparation for him. And so the dream is come true in our commonalities and our differences that make the sum greater than each us living together.  

       Sometimes your dream is so nebulous and seemingly unknown. What made Joseph a dreamer we may never know, what made me a dreamer was being gay and the hope and dream of being out, proud and fully integrated as a human being. I am a gay man created by God to love and serve him (and by extension my husband, kids, cat and world) as a gay man.

        Are you a dreamer? Is God a part of your dream come true?  Lent is still with us as we wait to break free from our Lenten cocoon. What dream come true awaits you on the other side of the cocoon? What kind of butterfly will you be? What kind of butterfly are you?

The man said, ‘They have gone away, for I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.” ’ So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’