How real our dreams are as we dream them! But how many of us so quickly brush away the messages of our dreams as soon as we’ve woken up and journeyed back into our daily lives? In our dreams we are heroes; waking, we doubt. In our dreams we fly; waking, we slouch.
What if we actually paid attention to our dreams, and responded to them in our waking lives?
It is Hanukkah. A holiday birthed when one man followed his inner voice and took a stand against an injustice. One family started a rebellion that freed a people. It is a holiday that speaks to, as my Rabbi Sharon Brous from Ikar says, “the reverberative potential within each individual and every act… the great and eternal truth that everyone has the potential to change everyone.” To that, she has provided the following story, that I am passing along here – a story about the power of a dream paid attention to, and the reverberative effect it had on an entire nation:
Women Protesting
“This past summer on a trip to Liberia with American Jewish World Service, I met Leymah Gbowee. In 2003, she was in her late 20s – married to an abusive man, mother of four children with no work and no money. Her home and her hometown had been devastated by fourteen years of civil war. The country was in shambles and Leymah was paralyzed by despair.
One night, she had a strange dream in which a voice told her to gather the women and pray for peace. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she felt compelled to take the message seriously and began to mobilize the women to pray. She posted signs all around the capital city of Monrovia calling the women to meet her at the fish market to protest the violence and force the warlords and the government to lay down their arms.
The morning of the protest, she arrived at the empty fish market early, and wondered what she would do if nobody came. But then, as the sun rose, she stood in shock as thousands and thousands of women poured into the market from all corners of the city, proclaiming one simple message: “We want peace. No more war.” At the end of the day, they vowed to return to the market every day – wearing white T-shirts and scarves, sitting in the blazing sun and pouring rain – declaring that they would not move until the men made peace.
The militias and the government were known for their brutality – they could easily have killed every last one of those women. I asked one of the women involved if she was scared. “We were not afraid,” she said. “Either we will die from war, or we will die fighting to make peace.” Day after day they appeared, staring down generals, warlords and soldiers. Leymah, like Queen Esther before her, stood before the President, Charles Taylor, and cried out:
The women of Liberia are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging [for food]… We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of our society, that tomorrow our children will ask us, ‘Mama, what was your role during the crisis?’
The women won. President Taylor was forced to step down and the 40,000 rebels had to disarm, waiting on lines around the country to turn in their guns and grenades. And last year, Leymah Gbowee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Liberia is still desperately poor and faces extraordinary challenges, but this story is a testament to the power of one woman with a dream to change the world.”
What dream are you not paying attention to? What would happen if you started to pay attention, right now, today?
Light a light, be a light. Happy Hanukkah,
Bonnie
(Liberian women protesting photo by Pewee Flomoku, July 2003, found on www.boston.com)
