Ear worms. I’ve come across them before. They are those tunes that play out in your head over and over and over. Whether they have a life expectancy or not I don’t know but I was plagued by one for weeks on end. It was the first tune hummed in the morning and the las last one and night and frequent moments in between. I say hummed. Most people know the first two lines and not much else of any song for the most part.
My ear worm was ‘The impossible Dream’. There is a scene in a TV programme that my husband watched that played the song while someone took an automatic weapon and massacred a room full of people. I think.
I googled the lyrics.
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
And to run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
And to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
The first two verses. The song comes from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha. There is a film of the same name starring Peter O'Toole. It follows the story of a man disillusioned with the lack of honour and virtue in the world. He slips into a world of the imagination. In this world he is Don Quijote de la Mancha, searching for wrongs to right, causes to champion and Damsels to deliver. He strives for something unattainable ‘The Impossible Dream’ but believes that the world be a better place if he keeps trying.
I know all about ‘Impossible Dreams’ and striving for something that is unattainable. Sometimes in my walk with God I can’t really tell whether I am trying too hard or not trying enough. I read things in the Bible that seem to set an impossible standard. The ‘faith head’ tells me that I really don’t need to reach those standards because Jesus has done it for me. The ‘works head’ tells me that I have at least to try to achieve them.
As I hummed the song, googled the words and listen the Luther Van Dross sing the song I came to the conclusion that it really was an impossible Dream and the ticky boxes in the lyrics were untckable. I had, in front of me, a queue of unbeatable foes, I had arms that were too tired and yet there was this expectation that I would reach this unreachable star. I was floundering. I had a letter from a friend who had walked away from church and God was there but not at the centre of her life. I didn’t want to walk away but…
I had a picture of me sitting somewhere. I suspect it was on the steps that lead down to my back garden. I think about sitting there often, but I never do. It is not the cleanest of steps and I think of spiders and things. Anyway, in my imagination that is where I was sitting. Maybe the world was on my shoulder. I pictured God sitting down next to me. The step is wide enough.
‘Forget about the first line for a moment. That unbeatable foe? It’s not unbeatable. It has been beaten. I have beaten it. I know that there are battles still to fight but I have armed you with right weapons to fight. Prayer. The word of God. And I have given you allies. A whole church family all around.
‘And see those arms that are too weary? I give you rest. Yes, I know the fitbit monitors your sleep and most nights it tells you it was a good night’s sleep. My rest is a mind rest and soul rest, and it happens when you come and sit with Me. When you take the armour off. You’re not supposed to live in it, you know?
‘And that unreachable star? Everything I ask of you is reachable. I don’t assign you impossible tasks and then tell you off for not doing them. If you feel that you are trying to reach out for an unreachable star – it’s not the destination I have set for you. It’s your star, not mine. For everything I give you to do, I give you all the resources you need.’
It wasn’t Luther Van Dross singing the song in my head. It was the enemy bashing me over the head with every phrase. And here was God sitting next to me on my back steps removing all the splinters that came my way and kissing me better.
‘Impossible is not really part of my vocabular,’ He said, as He got up, shook his clothes and reached a hand down to help me to my feet. ‘It really shouldn’t be part of yours either.’
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