A Grand Promise -- Introduction

This series is about something lost. Something hidden. Something that has been staring us in the face for quite a while and we’ve been taught not to see it. We can catch glimpses of it out of the corner of our eye. Sometimes we see it in the faces of our coworkers, local shop owners, bank tellers, mail carriers, neighbors. Occasionally we see it on television. From time to time we glance quick flashes of it in the great stories and poems throughout the history of the common era (CE).

For many of us, though, that’s all that it is -- a story.

A fairy tale.

A crutch for simple people in desperate times.

But actually, that last bit has been the fairy tale. More like the slight of hand from a very impressive illusionist, we get so caught up in watching what the illusionist wants us to see, that we don’t perceive what’s really going on. And if we do sense it, we’re told just to ignore it. Taught to ignore it. That it’s nothing more than our imagination.

I’m here to tell you, though, that those flashes are the real world. Those glimpses are what’s really going on. They’re the flicker of a grand promise that the world is heading in a better direction than we’ve been lead to believe. Better, in fact, that we would dare dream. Better than I’ll be able to convey in this series. And that’s okay. Because this is G-d’s* dream.

The focus of this series will be on that dream and its implication and  implementation today.

Here.

Now.

Right where we live.

That dream -- G-d’s dream -- tells a story. It’s a story about love. It’s a story about sacrifice. It’s a story about a cosmic event from the distant past that forever changed the course of the world. It’s about the present and how that event radically transforms the way we interact with those around us -- human or non-human. And, ultimately, it’s about the future; about where we’re headed. It’s a story about turning things upside down (or, perhaps, right-side up). It’s a story about the reconciliation of all things “in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Philippians 2).

But this story, this dream, G-d’s dream, is one that we can participate in. In fact, it’s up to us -- everyone of us -- to help bring that dream to fruition. And it’s already started.

Before we get to that, though, we need to see what’s happened to get us to that place. So, let’s start at the beginning...

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* I write "G-d" this way not to offend other people and to let the casual reader know that the way I view G-d is probably different from the way they view G-d. When we see the word "God," generally we automatically (subconsciously) think that we are in agreement on what we mean by that. So I do it out of respect for other people's views. It's a recognition that all of us are at different stages of development.