Some Thoughts about Expectations and Dreams

     The other day I was working on liturgy for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday when I remembered a recent Enquirer article about Dr. Phillip A. Sharp. He’s a Kentuckian who grew up on a Pendleton County farm and became a renowned scientist, teacher at MIT, and winner of a Nobel Prize. The thread that brought him to mind was that both he and Martin Jr. were people from unassuming “regular” families who grew into international greatness. 

     In Phillip’s rural neighborhood, would any have expected this local farm boy to become a world-recognized scientist? In the Atlanta of 1929, would neighbors of the King family have had any inkling this new baby would grow up to change society?  Both of these boys emerged from ordinary circumstances to outstrip the common expectations for kids growing up in their home towns. 

     Jesus’ neighbors had very low expectations of him. (Remember?  He couldn’t perform many miracles in his hometown because they were so skeptical. Then there was Nathanial with his “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” attitude.) Jesus, however, had a vision of his mission that far surpassed what anyone could have imagined. 

     Funny thing about expectations – they have a lot of power over us. We humans tend to get stuck in the ordinary, the status quo. We don’t often let our hopes rise to a very high level. Why is that? I can think of a couple of reasons. 

     For one thing, it takes time and a lot of energy to believe that something more than the usual can develop out of a situation. Personally, I know I can get bogged down in the minutiae of the day-to-day and put off trying to think outside the box. 

     Another thing is that we don’t like to have our balloons burst. Sometimes it’s easier to not have hopes in the first place than to feel the pain of loss or defeat. I guess one bottom line is that when we invite hopes and dreams on our journey, risk is usually along for the trip! For Jesus, that risk turned into the cross. The cross, however, was the path to resurrection! 

     What expectations do we have of ourselves? What do we expect of the various persons we meet every day? What kinds of boxes do we put ourselves or others into? Boxes certainly can make our lives more predictable and manageable, but how many possible scenarios are never born because we choose the well-worn path over the one that may reveal new, more fruitful opportunities? When the 17^th c. Japanese poet Matsuo Basho advised us not to follow the footsteps of those who have gone ahead , but rather seek what they sought, he could well have been speaking to us about ourselves. Sometimes we need to challenge ourselves to change the way we think about our life, our day, our neighbor, our calendar … something that might strengthen our powers to dream and expect more than what always happens. Jesus certainly did! 

     Robert Kennedy’s use of George Bernard Shaw’s quote made it really famous, and it is an appropriate way to end these thoughts: "Some men see things as they are and say 'why'? Others dream things that never were and say 'why not'?" Drs. Phillip A. Sharp and Martin L. King Jr. both did. What about us?

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PS: In reflecting on these things, I found a number of wonderful quotations on the topic that I didn’t want to let slip away. I jotted them in my personal blog, so if you’d be interested in seeing them, check out my “Musings from a KY monk” athttp://KYmonastery.blogspot.com. 

Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB