Picking and Living the Dream

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there. 

When I was young, I loved reading girls’ series books featuring heroines like Betsy Ray, Polly Pepper, Trixie Belden, Penny Parrish, Marcy Rhodes, and Donna Parker. They solved mysteries, took care of their siblings, fretted over makeup and clothes and boyfriends, fought with their best friends, the usual stuff.

And then there was Beany Malone.

The heroine of fourteen books by Lenora Mattingly Weber, Catherine “Beany” Malone was the youngest of

four children in a Denver family whose mother was dead and whose father was an often absent newspaperman. I liked Beany because she was capable, pretty much running the household even when we met her at sixteen. Some girls liked her because you always figured she would follow in her dad’s footsteps and become a writer. Beany figured that too; her after-school job was helping the newspaper’s advice columnist, and she worked on the school newspaper.

But in the oh-so-aptly titled Pick a New Dream, Beany’s graduated from high school and the advice columnist is leaving the country—permanently. Perfect, right? Wrong. There’s no summer job for Beany with the columnist, who in parting basically tells Beany she’s not meant to be a writer. Beany mourns this turn of events. And yet—she finds happiness and love in a totally unexpected way: by working at the community center.

Pick a new dream.

That’s in essence what the Lord tells Samuel in today’s first reading from 1 Samuel 16. Or rather, He tells Samuel he’s picked a new dream for him in the form of one of Jesse’s sons, who turns out to be David. Samuel doesn’t immediately marvel or rejoice at this news; rather, he fears for his earthly life if he carries out the Lord’s plan.

In the Gospel reading from Mark 2, the Pharisees know the rules about the sabbath. Jesus offers more than a new dream; he offers a new way of life, as the Lord has set forth in the Messiah’s coming.

That’s the thing about earthly hurts or disappointments, whether you’re Samuel or the Pharisees or Beany Malone. The Lord desires nothing but good for us, but we can get in our own way and set ourselves up for disappointment when we listen to our own egos rather than praying for guidance and the strength to be obedient. When we discern and accept the Lord’s dream for us and put down our struggles, it all gets a lot easier, no matter how difficult it may appear on the outside.