Daring
Looking back on my words for 2016, they are incomplete without one another. I believe many of our dreams must die — but what we often find underneath is something much greater than what we originally thought. If we do not allow those old dreams to die, and then to bring new life from their death, we lose the beauty of what God is doing beneath it all. But these new dreams we are given, dreams with a deeper foundation, become stagnant without daring — full of decay and bitterness. There is nothing worse than a person who talks about their dreams but never does anything about them, or doesn’t grieve them what they pass, wasting away and pining for the moment that God will place in their lap what they most desire. Just like ideals without character are useless at best, dreams without daring create a rot in our souls. Dreams that sit and do nothing, idling away while we talk about them and say that someday we’ll get to them – these dreams eat at us, gnawing at us from the inside out until we finally listen to them. The dreams planted in us are necessary and good, but without daring they become dangerous to our souls.
They’ve been overused, now, but the words of Theodore Roosevelt ring more true for me than ever:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
What stands out most to me is the desire to not be a “cold and timid soul.” I have been this – a critic and pharisee – and it’s never given me any warmth or hope or joy. I have found that the times I feel most alive are the times where I am getting my hands dirty and doing the thing, instead of pointing out how politicians, or churches, or people could all be doing these things better. Our dreams require of us that we shed our outer critic and jump into the arena, whether or not we feel ready.
Daring also requires the death of perfectionism. Our dreams are lovely in our own heads, but when we actually try to do something about them, things often get messy and weird. Nothing turns out the way we saw it turning out, and we begin to doubt we’re even doing the thing after all. In our heads the dreams were light and airy, full of the joys of lived ideals. In reality, our dreams are cluttered up with bills and laundry and relational drama. They aren’t what we pictured, so the first thought is often to give it up. The fact that the actual life we’re living is so far from the dream we imagined makes it all the more disorienting. Wasn’t this supposed to bring joy? Peace? Happiness? If we compare our lived dreams to the dreams we painted in our heads, then yes, we should give in. But that’s when daring makes an entrance. With dirt and grime covering our faces, our hands, our hearts, we keep going anyways.
On the world stage, I think about people like Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee — people who have overcome mental and physical health problems to go on and win gold medals despite the odds. But on a smaller scale, and probably a deeper level, I think of the refugees I resettle every day, entering into another traumatic situation in order to create a better life for themselves and their children. We’re quick to point fingers when people fail or quit. When Simone withdrew in Tokyo, none of us quite knew how to process our Olympic hero dealing with mental health concerns. We do the same for refugees. They’ve made it to their final destination, so why can’t they get it together? Why can’t they keep the job? Why can’t they learn the language? We want an Olympic story right away, forgetting that it takes years, decades, even generations to rewrite the ending. Simone came back, but it would’ve been fine if she didn’t – she was the one in the arena, not us. My refugee friends are mostly doing their best, and we will never understand what that means. We are quick to judge, but slow to join people in the arena.
I don’t just want to be quick to enter the arena for my own dreams – I want to be quick to sit with others in their arenas. I want to be able to walk to people when their head is low, or when they’re lying exhausted in the dirt, and bring them a tea and remind them that tomorrow is another day. I want to be the kind of person that let’s people fail, because that’s what happens in the arena. I want to be the kind of person that lifts people’s chins up, gives them a hug, reminds them of why they entered this ring in the first place. I want to do that for others because I need others to do it for me, and they have. I have needed to be lifted off the ground so many times over the course of my life — but at the end of the day, I have never regretted being in the arena. It doesn’t look how I thought it would, and it doesn’t make sense most of the time. But with dirt on my face and grit underneath my fingernails, I am choosing to stay.