Dreams and Emancipation

Dreams and Emancipation

There are lots of graduations happening these days. I had two daughters graduate from college this year and my son just graduated from high school. I have friends who have children graduating from junior high school and I have even heard of kindergarten graduation ceremonies -- really!!! It doesn't seem like there is much work involved in graduating from kindergarten -- but maybe the requirements have changed since my kids were that age :)

As children progress through their life, these graduations are markers in time that they are slowly but surely emancipating from their parents. They are developing through a normal sequence of independence. It comes by making their own decisions about what to wear to school, to pack in their lunches, courses to take in high school and college, to what jobs to take when they graduate. These small and large decisions help them individuate into the people that God has created them to be. When all works in a healthy way, it's a beautiful thing.

But sometimes there are forces that restrict, bind, or imprison us in systems that enslave instead of emancipate. These restrictive systems could be as minimal as over protective parents and as severe as slave labor or sexual slavery. The physical, emotional, and psychological process that brings about emancipation for the enslaved is what fascinates me. What is the developmental process that happens - that needs to happen - for a person or people group to be fully emancipated? What stages along the road of emancipation influence people to either be empowered or entitled? What components are true markers of emancipation?

I thinking dreaming is a significant marker on the road of emancipation. When a person or people stop dreaming of what life could be -- they have lost hope. Hope that they could move into a way of life that resonates with their soul. They are so bound and restricted in their everyday life, their paradigm about themselves and circumstances, and the chains that bind their heart that they have lost hope in dreaming for something different. When the chains can be broken - physically, emotionally, and/or psychologically, then a true graduation of sorts has occurred.

I spoke to a woman this evening about what her dreams were. She has been in a job for a few years that has worn her out. She has been caught up in the routine day to day and the enormity of her responsibilities and lost sight of the future. She said she didn't have any dreams right now. She stopped dreaming a while ago. But she quit her job this week. I pray that now her soul will have the space it needs to start dreaming again.

What are you dreaming about these days?