My wife and I went to the RAIN (Beatles tribute band) concert.

I believe I now have a sense of what is like to be on an LSD trip.  The band sang “Strawberry fields forever”, with lava-flow lighting and smoke.  Their words and instruments communicated to me a profound sense of relieve (like some stress had been lifted off my shoulders), and then to a disoriented semi-gloom (a light depression), followed by a nostalgic wish to return to the original sense of relieve.  I guessed that maybe that was the kind of LSD trip the author had experienced.  I felt I shared in the experience through their music.  Which kind-of prepared me for my next new experience.

When the band sang John Lennon’s  “Imagine” I had a freedom to join in the imagining.  Always before for me the song had been a guilty pleasure; intriguing words and melody that flew in the face of my faith.  “Imagine there is no heaven …” – heresy, right?  Yet, in these moments of existential freedom, I liked what I heard.  I saw the words in a new light.  Like, “what if we weren’t all sinners and bound to betray our own highest values?”  I pictured the John Lennon who wrote “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can” sending millions of dollars on his own comforts.  And, I hurt for him.

I realized that John could only imagine.  He was a dreamer dreaming a dream he must have known he could never even do his part to bring about.  But, OH what a wonderful dream!!!  A world with no war, no greed, no lies, manipulation, or dominating each other.

I felt glad that John was a dreamer; glad that he imagined a better world.  I want that same world, and am free to pursue it through the healing God is working in my soul.  Through Christ Jesus I am offered the joy of heaven promised and the kingdom of heaven breaking into my life.  I get to dream with hope.  I get to imagine with confidence.