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This week Michelle and I attended one of the many summer
outdoor music concerts around the Green Bay area. The lead singer shared some of the band’s
history in-between songs. It turned out
that the singer was from Sweden, she first came Green Bay as an international
student in high school. She started
dating a boy at the school but had to return home to Sweden after
graduation. They continued to stay in
touch and date “really long distance”.
In fact, 7000apart, the name of their band came from the fact that they
were literally 7000 kilometers apart for much of their early relationship. But they stuck with it and now they are
married.
They formed the band ten years ago, got a big break
when they appeared on Sweden’s Got Talent, and appeared to be making a
name for themselves just as Covid hit.
Sweden shut down and their music dreams got shut down. Four years ago, they quit their “day jobs”
and focused 100 percent on music. Now
they live primarily in Sweden but return to Wisconsin for the summer months,
all the while playing wherever and whenever they can. With ten years of effort and counting, they
continue to dream about being the next ‘overnight sensation’ in the highly competitive
world of professional music.
I know something about long-term dreams. A thousand years ago or so, when I was in
sixth grade, Sister Elise gave us a writing assignment. It was only a couple of paragraphs, but I
remember that I used an image of an aspen tree with leaves that fluttered in
the breeze like so many shiny quarters.
She liked the image so much that she not only gave me an “A” on the
assignment, she mailed the paper to my parents with a note that I had a “talent”
for writing. A dream was born.
During my high school years, I decided that I would be
the next great outdoor writer. There was
a great little magazine that started called Wisconsin Outdoors. My
thought was that I stood a much better chance of getting published in there
rather than trying to get into the big national magazines like Sports Afield,
or Outdoor Life. It almost
worked. I pestered the editor with a
number of stories. I learned about rejection
letters. Finally, after dozens of attempts,
I received an acceptance letter. While
there was no firm projected date of publication, they agreed to hold the piece
until there was room in an upcoming issue.
I was excited.
My dream was coming true.
However, just a few months later, the magazine announced that they were
ceasing operations. I don’t know if my
article got tossed out, or if it is still in a cardboard file box in somebody’s
basement.
I attended St. Norbert College. I wanted to write for a living, but the
school didn’t have a writing degree of any sort, so I settled on an English
degree. The school provided me lots of
opportunity to write both in class and out.
I developed an appreciation for poetry; I liked the challenge of compact
writing with vivid imagery and strong metaphor.
Even though I did successfully get several pieces published, I found out
that most poetry publications “paid” writers with free copies of the editions
their pieces appeared in. While it is
somewhat satisfying to be able to take an anthology off of the shelf and open
to your poem, you can’t support yourself that way. At least I wasn’t able to find a landlord who
would accept a journal of poetry in exchange for rent.
Since I had gotten married and there were real landlords
who wanted money and the reality of car payments and grocery bills, and everything
you have to do to support a growing family, my writing was shelved as I entered
the work world. Even there, however,
little chances came along to keep my dream on life support, like being given
the opportunity to write the company newsletter.
Oddly, it was Covid – the same pandemic that almost
defeated 7000apart, that provided an unexpected pathway for me. When the bishops shut down churches the
pastor at the four linked parishes that I am assigned to as a deacon was
anti-technology. He was not interested
in streaming Masses or any other on-line presence. He just wanted to hunker down and wait out
Covid. A few of us on staff though met on
our own to discuss how we could stay in touch with our parishioners. At that meeting one of the people asked if I
would write something that we could post of the parish website. I agreed to try and Embers was born.
After writing for three years, Becky who had first
suggested I start the blog, asked if I could meet her for coffee so she could
show me something. When I sat down at
the table she spun her laptop around and showed me the webpage and Facebook
pages that she had created for Embers.
“Other people than our parishioners should get the chance to read your
writing.” Everyone has a dream. But, to make that dream come to life, you
need someone else to believe in you. Today
over 50K people have read an Embers post, and the number of readers is
increasing noticeably. The first few months
I had a couple hundred people reading each week. Now, over three thousand people read each
month and this post is #300. I know that’s
meager compared to those sites that focus on the trendy, the political, the controversial,
the rich and famous, but for a dream of using my writing to help others
recognize that God is actively working in their lives through their own
relationships with Him, with each other and with His creation, I think it’s
pretty good.
I believe God instills a different dream in each of our
hearts to show us that we are unique, to show us that He sees us, and that He
wants us to use that dream for love of Him and love of neighbor, and love of
self. Never give up on your dreams because
God never gives up on you.
Then afterward I will pour out my spirit
on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall
dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Joel
2:28
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
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