Events, trips and experiences can be expressed with words quite easily. You may argue against this citing the “most unbelievable view” you’ve seen or how “words cannot describe” how lovely the food was. Thing is, those phrases are actually the best way to express these experiences; you invite family and friends to suspend reality for a brief moment? and dream. They recreate those lovely vistas and feasts in their own worlds, sometimes making them more beautiful and unimaginable than the real thing.
This is the beauty of the dream. We recreate our past to savor memories most precious and dear. We suspend life to momentarily walk through a more beautiful world. We bend reality to craft a future filled with things we love most. But again these things are in fact “things,” something our mind’s eye can see and imagine.
But? What happens when you encounter something that is far more complex than what you see and is too intricate to imagine? Dominick Cobb attempted this for years but ultimately recognized his folly: “I can’t imagine you with all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife. You’re the best I can do, but I’m sorry, you are just not good enough.”
People. Relationships. Love. They go beyond sight. They are sweeter than the best of dreams. I could imagine what seeing Big Ben would be like; I could imagine the sublime pulse that would flow through my veins at Pointe du Hoc before I saw it with my own eyes. I also imagined finding a bible study in London, attending for the first time, and going on to make friends of them. Reality, as it turns out, was far more beautiful and complex than the shade my mind created.
I couldn’t have imagined being unable to find the group I was looking for. I couldn’t have imagined what it would feel like giving up hope after searching all over a university campus for the better part of an hour? only to find another group around the last corner. I never could have imagined why I didn?t feel like a visitor in a place I had never been before:
I knew these people.
And they knew me.
We had never met before, yet we knew each other. We didn’t have any mutual friends, yet we knew the same people. It was this night that I saw the beauty of the Body of Christ and the bond we share as brothers and sisters.
These bonds cannot be created in a dream; shades pale in comparison.
Ueno Takuya. Noah Neo. Sissi He. Edwina Goh. Cosovliu Ramona. Analiz Vergara. Mickey Juan. Esmond Lee. Hannah-Rivkah Martin-Thomas. Ben Chow.
They are people whom I could never imagine, experiences I could never create in the best of dreams. We exchanged scriptures, shared meals, talked of silly things and laughed for weeks.
We lived life together. We joined hearts and hands in this wonderful thing called life.
They are people. People whom I was blessed to meet. People whom I pray I could embrace in this life just once more. People whom I will forever hold dear in my heart.
“London is such a sad place. You do get to meet all sorts of people but eventually you have to say goodbye.” – Sissi He