Perhaps pipe dreams proliferate when smoking a hookah pipe with something stronger than flavoured tobacco, but wish-filled thinking also generates a flurry of dreams. They may not come to fulfillment, but they often point in a direction and evoke hope that goes beyond the routine, the known, or the safe.   They prod us!   Or is it the Spirit prodding us?

Gordon Light’s evocative song comes to mind,  calling all to “Colour Outside the Lines” (More Voice 138) inviting us - not to smoke - but to venture, explore, go beyond the limitations we normally set for ourselves or have set for us by others.   

Thomas Homer-Dixon reinforces this call to dream when he extolls the virtue of hope. “Our capacity and need for hope, as long as we keep hope honest, is a precious gift, because it encourages us to keep open a space for possibilities, and to use our imagination to create possibilities in that space. That hope thrives on uncertainly is not a weakness but its greatest strength.” (p. 120 in Commanding Hope – the power we have to renew a world in peril. Alfred A Knopff Canada. 2020.) 

But it is also true that hope is generated by purposeful actions. Even small acts of kindness, generosity, goodwill have the power to move people toward a more hopeful way of being, because “every worthwhile gift, every genuine benefit comes from above, descending from the Creator of the heavenly luminaries, who cannot change and is never in shadow.” (James 1:17 Inclusive Bible Translation)

So this post is a mixture of fantasy, wishful thinking, and dreaming awakened by  troubling realities and by small and large acts of kindness and justice.  

1. Exams Testing Kindergarten Learnings. This would be a required test for anyone taking on leadership roles – bosses, police, politicians, coaches, captains, teachers, physicians, and many more. For biblical support look here: Matthew 18:1-3.   

Robert Fulghum must have experienced much of what is prodding me into this pipe dream. When we see political leaders bullying, abusing, lying, recruiting sycophants and causing nightmares with their narcissism and self-interestedness, then we urgently need to mark their tests, recognize their failed exams, and require urgent and thorough remedial learning programs to repeat those early lessons taught (but obviously, not learned) in kindergarten.   

If you’ve forgotten the lessons or know of others who may have lost the text book, here’s the link that will lead to the heart of this basic human life learning: https://cpco.on.ca/files/9214/0182/6527/NeedToKnow.pdf. Better yet, buy a copy of the book as a way of thanking Fulghum for his educational genius.

(©Robert!Fulghum,1990. All I Really Need To Know Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books, New York, 1990).

2. For Those Who Pass the Kindergarten Learning Exam: The graduate courses in this competency program focus on “The Golden Rule” – treat others as you want to be treated (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31), as well as the “Great Commandment” – love God above all and neighbour as self (Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:27; also Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.

Learners in these courses will acquire neither a degree nor a halo, but will warm the cockles of many-a heart, including their own. It should be noted that these virtues are among the most challenging  “ways” of living – hence “graduate” courses. 

A certificate of faithful competency will be offered to all who have internalized and demonstrate the learning of the graduate courses as summed up in Micah’s cogent words: “Listen here, mortal: God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is, and what [the Creator] needs from you: simply do justice, love kindness, and humbly walk with your God.” (Micah 6:8 The Inclusive Bible Translation, p. 351)

3. A National-Provincial-Territorial Drugs and Health Authority: Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could get the governments – provincial, territorial, federal, and municipal – to create a whole new way of dealing with the opioid drug crisis which is killing far too many people – young, old, and in between. What if we saw drug addiction as a health issue and not a criminal problem. Imagine the results: safe injection sites would be readily accessible; drug distribution gangs would go out of business because supply would be prudently distributed by the authority; petty thefts and break ins and other property crime would be starkly reduced because the addicted would get help with their health issues and not be tempted by criminal activities; policing and prison budgets could be reduced; families would have far less grief and suffering because the provided drugs would not be laced with fentanyl, killing their loved ones. 

Ministers of health rally eagerly together to listen carefully to the Portuguese ambassador and other experts, who inspire them to risk bravely but assertively to promote decriminalizing drugs and improve the health of Canadians and the well-being of  our society. 

(And of course, they’ll also begin to want to add long-term care, universal single-payer pharmaceuticals, and dental care to their complete health care “to do list”!! It’s just common sense, after all!)

4. Across Party Governance: Canada and all Canadians would be better served if the federal government would bend parliamentary conventions and create across party teams focussing on specific national issues.  World War 2 freed parliamentary democracies from rigid party-based governance and opened the door to successful collaboration across party-lines to achieve victory. 

Two major issues (among others) could far more effectively be addressed if our political leaders – and especially the current federal government – could open the door to the wisdom and creative energies of other elected representatives by creating cross-party teams.   

*Addressing climate change could now be far more effectively addressed since the major parties, including the Greens, have acknowledged the reality of the threat and the need for national (and international) cooperation to overcome this threat to Canada and to the Earth itself. 

*Similarly, the issue of transforming the relationship between Indigenous and Settler peoples will be addressed much more effectively when all the parties together work with Indigenous Peoples to create a new relationship that better serves all Canadians and strengthens Canada in the community of nations. 

Much work has already been carried out to establish the legal basis underlying a new transformed relationship. What is needed now is collective goodwill, generosity, and a passion for justice as leaders work together to forge a new way that is fair and equitable.  It is long overdue time for Indigenous Peoples to be freed from the oppressions of the Indian Act and fairly resourced to be full participants in a two-row wampum society.   This would indeed be a dream come true!

5. Controlling the COVID Virus: I dream of a time when every Canadian - and every member of the global human family able to, has willingly been vaccinated so that the unnecessary death of thousands/millions can stop.   The evidence is clear: no vaccination makes you vulnerable and increases your chances to hospitalization and death. Vaccination clearly reduces, if not eliminates, the threat.   

The dream includes the transformation of conspiracy-theory spreaders, religious-extremists, and other intransigent nay-sayers, who have finally been moved to understand the damage their false-testimonies have caused. They repent by marching masked and with social-distancing to pop-up clinics where injections are offered without judgement.. 

6. More pipe dreams galore!   Faith is to have dreams that prod humans to grasp the blessings that the Creator Spirit offers.  What are your dreams?  How are you sharing them?  What are you doing about them?