THE ART OF LIVING EACH DAY

AS LONG AS A MAN HAS A DREAM IN HIS HEART, he cannot lose the significance of living. It is a part of the pretensions of modern life to traffic in what is generally called realism. There is much insistence upon being practical, down to earth. Such things as dreams are wont to be regarded as romantic or as a badge of immaturity, or as escape hatches for the human spirit. Man cannot continue long to live if the dream in the heart has perished. It is then that he stops hoping, stops looking and the last embers of his anticipations fade away. The dream in the heart is the outlet. It is one with the living water welling up from the very springs of Being, nourishing and sustaining all of life. Where there is no dream the life becomes a swamp, a dreary dead place and deep within, a man's heart begins to rot. The dream need not be some great and overwhelming plan; it need not be a dramatic picture of what might or must be some day, it need not be a concrete outpouring of world-shaking possibility of sure fulfillment. Such may be crutial for a particular moment of human history. But it is not in these grand ways that the dream nourishes life. The dream is the quiet persistence in the heart that enables a man to ride out the storms of his churning experiences. It is the exciting whisper moving through the aisles of his spirit answering the monotony of limitless days of dull routine. It is the ever recurring melody in the midst of the broken harmony and harsh discords of human conflict. It is the touch of significance which highlights the ordinary experience, the common event. The dream is no outward thing. It does not take its rise from the environment in which one moves or functions. It lives in the inward parts, it is deep within where where the issues of life and death are ultimately determined. Keep alive the dream; for as long as man has a dream in his heart, HE CANNOT LOSE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIVING. Don says: A very deep but enlightening article. It should be read over and over, in order to pick up all the nuances therein. It is a way to follow out of the morass of alcoholism. The way back is painful but when you reach constant sobriety, the pain is well worth it. Written by Howard Thurman