Making Dreams Real: Triumph in Times of Tragedy

Note: This post also featured on Huffington Post Sports.

With a staggering array of domestic and global crises, President Obama took a few minutes on ESPN to fill out his NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket. Many on Fox News chastised him, even though he encouraged sports fans to donate to relief efforts in Japan.

Obama was reminding us to dream. Life goes on.

Why do we get caught up in athletics if it isn't to dream? To tap into that part of us that transcends our perceived physical and mental limitations, or to cheer those who excel at levels beyond our grasp. We celebrate the game. We celebrate the dream. We celebrate life.

Last night, Demonte Harper lived his Coach Donnie Tyndall's dream, and Kenneth Faried blocked a last second shot to deliver a stunning upset as tiny Morehead State beat perennial powerhouse Louisville. John Branch of the New York Times writes:

In the restless, dark hours before the game between his 13th-seeded Eagles and No. 4 Louisville, a pair of teams from opposite ends of Kentucky basketball royalty, Tyndall could not sleep. His mind flashed forward to the possibilities. If the deficit is one or two, he told himself in the still of the night, the senior guard Demonte Harper is shooting a 3. 

Tyndall shared that vision during a timeout. Morehead State trailed, 61-59, with 23 seconds left. But Harper was 0 for 5 from the 3-point line. It was the junior Terrance Hill, 5 for 6, who had unexpectedly kept the Eagles aloft in the second half.  No matter. Tyndall followed his head and his heart. 

“He said, ‘I know exactly where I’m going to,’  ” Harper recalled. “I’m going to put it right in your hands, Demonte. I don’t want you to drive it to the hole. I want you to pull up and win the game off a 3-pointer.” 

When Harper took the floor, he allowed himself to dream of when he was a child, playing imaginary games with the clock ticking down. And down. And down.  Swish.

Harper’s shot from well beyond the top of the key with 4.2 seconds left gave Morehead State the lead that held up. 

“I think when we told him what we did in the huddle, it gave him an incredible amount of confidence to go make his play,” Tyndall said. “To his credit, he did.”

Of course he did. With confidence in his coach's dream, and a chance to live the buzzer-beater dreams of his youth, Harper showed us again people can rise above odds, fears, limitations, and lowered expectations.

Kenneth Faried, Harper's teammate who blocked Louisville's last shot, knows a thing or two about rising above limitations others put on him. ESPN's Dana O'Neil wrote a heartfelt profile of Faried, detailing his childhood in rough and tumble Newark, New Jersey; a story familiar to many young men in the tournament. But Faried's story has an unexpected twist; a lesbian mother and her spouse of ten years. His talents and success, in part, are a testament for many gay parents devoted to their children, against obstacles placed in their way by people who claim moral superiority on "Family Values." O'Neil writes:

And then 10 years ago, his mother introduced Faried to Manasin Copeland, the woman that would become her wife.

"I think people have an aura about them and the first time I met her, I thought, 'I like this lady," Faried said. "And when they got married, that showed me what commitment is all about, that there are people out there that can commit, even though for them it really has been the worst of times. I look at them, what they've been through and I think, 'Wow. That's amazing.' They're amazing to me."

O'Neil details the tragedies over which Faried's family has triumphed. They continue to see through darkness to the dream, and their love holds the family together.

Last week, in the wake of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, I wrote about prayer and meditation in times of tragedy. Featured all week on Huffington Post's Religion page, the comments section was filled with doubters and snark. They demanded proof.

When so much of what passes for religion in the world is about political control, it is completely understandable why people are so dismissive. But the inner journey I wrote about strengthens people in the face of tragedy, and leads them to do good works. It is the same connection Coach Donnie Tyndall had to his vision the night before an against-all-odds game. It is the same spirit that allowed Demonte Harper to tap into youthful fantasies and make them real. It is the same intangible but undying love, that emboldens Kenneth Faried's family and makes him, Harper and Morehead State, household names today.

The proof we are connected to something greater than just our limited idea of self is all around us. We just have to open our hearts to see it.

These are challenging times filled with change and transition. Tragedies call us to rethink our relationship to earth and one another. We are reminded of the power of nature and that technology's promise is coupled with dangers that demand a level of responsibility and accountability far beyond a quarterly dividend report. We see people uniting when governments and corporations fail, or use the public trust to usurp power and deceive.

We are witnessing the eternal story that is the irrepressible human spirit.

With all that is happening, we are reminded from the ashes of old ways, new will emerge. We are reminded to dream, to play, to give, to love. In our dreams and visions, prayers and meditations, lay tremendous potential. We must all do the hard work required to make that potential real.

Thoughts and Prayers Greater than 8.9

Note: This post now also featured on Huffington Post Religion.

When we go through trying times people say, "You're in my prayers," or the more secular, "in my thoughts," or, "I'm sending you good vibes." Especially today, with the news of an 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan, followed by tsunamis throughout the Pacific, many people will do more than send thoughts and prayers, they will send money (link - or Text 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross). It's all energy or representations of it, and it allows us to act on, and cultivate, empathy.

It's in these moments that people who doubt the efficacy of prayer, or good thoughts, are perhaps more open to understanding how they work. In the face of tragedy and tremendous shifts, not only in nature but in society, our thoughts and prayers may be all we have to offer, so we want to know they work. We practice, praying or meditating daily, to remove doubt, to strengthen our connection to something greater than ourselves.

We constantly hear how globally connected we are in trade, finance, politics, communications. When disaster strikes, we feel it, "our heart goes out to people," who lost lives, loved ones, homes, livelihood. We are connected.  People who are more sensitive to energies will literally feel out of sorts, a little depressed or anxious, immediately before or after a catastrophic event; like our animal friends, sensing within, significant changes in nature, loss of life, or destruction. We are connected.

If you accept this premise on any level, or if you've ever heard the phrase, "It starts within," or loved Michael Jackson's song, "Man in the Mirror," because that phrase or song resonated within you, you understand how prayer works.

Buddhists practice meditation to bring calm and notice that all thoughts are transient. Fear, love, anger, hope, anxiety, joy: all transient. All we have is this moment and our reaction to it. Calm begets calm, fear begets fear. Recognizing both are transient, we can also recognize which we'd rather experience more of, and which less, and walk the middle path as best we can. Practice allows us to stay calm in the face of tragedy, thus not compounding it. Christians pray knowing the Christ within, the promise as Jesus taught that by connecting our hearts to our highest and best self in God, we can walk with the same compassion, healing, love and forgiveness He lived. By relinquishing our illusion of control, we release worry, fear, doubt, and find our way to calm, peace, faith.

What are we thinking as we see the devastation? Fear? Worry? Troubled times? What next?

Native Americans and other indigenous peoples teach not to pray "for peace" because that puts peace outside of us when the purpose of prayer is to recognize our connection within.

Instead, pray peace, knowing it within; pray healing, feeling it within; pray comfort and thanksgiving, recalling how they make you feel within. Then know, in your heart, that what you feel resonates to those in need, because we are connected.

Pray thanksgiving? What is there to be thankful for in the face of such tragedy?

First responders, relief agencies, governments and non-governmental organizations able to move resources quickly, building codes that lessened the loss of life (compare Japan to Haiti, then be thankful for another opportunity for humanity to learn from the impact of the maldistribution of wealth on all God's children). Be grateful even for the lives that are lost, who in their passing offer another opportunity to evaluate what is important, to realize the transient nature of all things.

As devastating as today is, every day brings untold desperation to people without homes, food, health care. Violence wreaks havoc in families and communities the world over as individuals and entire classes of people seek to be free from oppression in any form. The singular goal of profit-above-all-else cause a very few to deprive others -- entire communities -- of jobs, good schools, clean water, clean air, self-determination. Dogma and those who use religion as a means of control, force many people to live in fear. While we pray for people whose tragedies are in the headlines today, we also remember people whose challenges barely warrant mention in the media, compassion and journalism pushed aside by consumerism, celebrity culture, and trumped-up political fights that distract us from remembering on Earth, God's work is truly our own. 

Perhaps we have to experience tragedy to remember how connected we are. Maybe that's what these turbulent times are teaching.

When you say Amen, Amin, Shalom, or whatever you say; let go, let God. Then if you can, help someone else today with your own good works. See someone you think you disagree with differently today, and know each small act of good sends ripples through the universe.