Dear Love,
I generally come at night,
but see in the daylight,
they call me surreal, bizarre, realms of fantasy,
‘cos I believe in everything I see
Even the impossible reverie,
no boundaries, I am free,
Sometimes, I am forgotten,
sometimes, I stay,
sometimes, I am nourished,
sometimes, I decay,
sometimes, I am made up,
sometimes, thrown away,
sometimes, I am chased,
sometimes, they stop halfway,
I still believe in everything they say,
Pliable like a moulding clay
Your Love, like me, sees beyond what is seen,
You see forward and not what has been,
They call You unreasonable, irrational, ludicrous and crazy,
For believing in mankind who acted brutal and beastly,
And still You fought for that man to be set free,
‘Cos You did see what was rather than what could be,
A beast into a beauty is all You could see,
What love is this that see only good, even in the unruly.
Love,
A Random Dream
Footnotes:
Like the poem, the footnote is going to be short this time. Interestingly, in my last story, I had mentioned about my dreams. Growing up, I did not see a lot of them. It was mostly falling off a cliff or climbing stairs. But that changed when I turned 14. I began seeing specific and sometimes abstract dreams. I saw people who I rarely associate with and imagery of events that are less likely to happen.
I saw dreams about me—details of things I would do. But I refused to believe it for a long time. “A random dream”—that is what I called it. However, these “random dreams” taught me to aspire and I firmly believe that God planted these in me. Like the dreams that teach us to see beyond what is there, God’s love reminds us gently that we are more than what we can see. His love gives us the confidence to boldly walk into territories that we think are beyond our league. His love empowers us to step out in faith. His love believes in us—His love believes all things.
To “believe all things” means that we give others the benefit of the doubt. It means that we expect the best. It means that we are able to overlook the offences and failure of others. It means we believe that over time we can commit ourselves to one another. “Believing all things” means that we are willing to trust one another.
I often asked this question to pastors, “does believing work without discerning?” One of them told me, “Discerning is about showing good judgement but believing all things means no judgement.” He went on to say that oftentimes, we anticipate being offended and prepare our statement of rebuttal beforehand. We think a truck of criticism is going to come our way and hence we question motives. In short, we feel that the ultimate purpose of every engagement with another is nothing but selfish. This is contrary to what believing in all things mean.
Like we dream without clause or conditions, we need to love even if we are convinced that nothing good is going to come out of it. We might get bruised badly, but it is no greater than the bruises on Jesus. He believed in the best to come out of us, so did the Heavenly Father. This is why the great sacrifice was made on the cross of Calvary. The greatest example of believing in us, sinners.