My focus of the To Dreamers theme is two layers.

One layer is that we all should dream big of a better world we can strive to make a difference for, and even if failing that we get enthusiastic over the challenge and faith that persevering takes.

The second layer is the recent political issue at stake over people's methods of validating citizenship, in which some say that one can be granted citizenship without requirement so long as they choose that citizenship, its rights, its obligations--and others more traditionally want to continue our legal process of meeting requirements of demographics, relative restriction in limits to the total, and individual behavior in order to be validly granted citizen rights and responsibilities. In this I take only the stand that any reform must be put into law for it to be followed, and a plea for legal reform in the wake of the conditions resulting from the recent and persistent refugee or immigrant intake.

I'm learning something important, one of those little rules of life or bits of wisdom that God passes to us which we can probably only receive if we are open to it and the time is right for our development to allow that opening.

The beginning and ending are the transitions we have in everything. Check, I knew that from before my faith formed and now I just happened to see how to apply that fact.

We live, and we die, both inevitable. We, in the faith, know we live again. That is one application of the beginning of one and the ending of another.

Another application of this flipping it, of switching tasks and stepping on to the next, on our changing in this world of inevitable changes...

We sacrifice before the altar in order to become One with Christ. This is both a simple and complex idea. I was given a blessing by witnessing Father Ramon talk on this subject at the event tonight at a local parish, a half hour covering the essence of what the Eucharist is in passing what he could of the six semesters of the course the seminaries take on that subject. Let me see if I can paraphrase or convey my take on it, without straying from the liturgical interpretations if I can and passing on this wisdom to all environments out there.

The sacrifice is the ending of our worldly concern. We do this in many forms but this always includes the giving over of trust/faith to Christ in an open heart so humbly compliant that one does not question, does not worry, does not wish for more, does not doubt the grand plan in which our suffering is bringing us together and closer to Christ. Through this is the beginning of our spiritual Grace, and how long we can maintain it through the opening in each moment and in each opportunity to give of ourselves and anything that is of our own expectations and wishes over to Christ in utter dependence, for He is the Creator that designed us to do His will.

I was not always of the faith and it may be a bit much for those in earlier stages of their development to not question automatically out of the things they have in their worldly environments and habitual thought patterns, but I know that once one does this act of opening the "leap of faith" without reservation, that one begins that journey from any state of disgrace into a metanoia of new-found Grace.

This means that there is a sychronicity, the word the band The Police used in their album years ago, or a harmony to use a more common word, or a synonym to use a literary word, or a metaphor to use a poetic word, between several concepts that are all coming together for me in this paradigm I'm seeing the world in tonight.

The similarities are between our commitment sacrifice (we suffer our ideas and possessions and will over to Christ for His good will), called palanca, and our altar sacrifice that evolved from animal sacrifices to our living sacrifice of God's only son for us together with us to unify with us in the Eucharist.

The similarities are also between our peace of mind when in that state of Grace of closeness when we have complete faith, and when we take the Eucharist, and when we are to pass into heaven itself.

The similarities, furthermore, are between how God, through the continuance of the Eucharist in the present, and the sacrifice that is timeless and passes for all generations, is in fact a connection to a timeless heaven in which we are already, when we taking the Eucharist, passing out of our worldly constructs of time and become one with the future afterlife in which all is at peace and unity with God.

My dreams were originally to become a musician, or songwriter that played their own works, when I was young and had much to learn about the world. I believe that you should always have dreams, big dreams, in order to accomplish big things. It is important because it gives you a direction and without direction you don't get where you truly want to go. However, it requires you know what you want and to know who you are deep down. To know what your real bucket list is as if this were really the moments that had to count. That is why having a finite lifespan is part of God's plan. That is why I needed to learn what I really wanted through experiencing my own life independently, and to learn that the only one holding me back from choosing what things I wanted to do with it was myself, in my insecurities, in my fears.

I grew in faith in levels. I first considered myself to be a writer (or poet, actually, though now I prefer the term writer) when I experienced that song lyrics were the most important part of the song in a class Rock Lyrics as a Literature Form at San Joaquin Delta College. That class was where I learned the emotions I was craving to convey (at the time it was for self-centered reasons in which I had my own definition of how relationships were meant to be)… I learned that those emotions were just as powerful without the tones and sound effects, when paired with the intonation of a poetic voice.

I am telling you this background to establish what led me to writing, then to publishing/editing, then back to writing. From having that background that was to promote the passionate writing I had, I learned the ins and outs of how things worked in the publishing world and got numerous credits and experiences but none of which were of a league to count in being able to get an agent to connect with a big publisher in non-fiction. Non-fiction, I know this by the time I began writing in it, is a field in which success is measured by having an audience already to support it, such is the amount of scrutiny one's personal experiences such as mine would be under when without a large amount of research to back it up (or degrees and/or public fan following).

Having established the rule, I propose my rationalization for breaking it. 

By my personal experiences, I have lived through several suicide attempts and a period of chaos in which I had no direction and in which I had put my hopes upon worldly things and not in the love of God nor the love of others. I learned that lesson the hard way, and learned its solution when placing my life in God's hands with a prayer and giving to God in faith, and never looking back in the means by which I would lead my life. My life has been with a purpose. To live with passion, is the best that one can aspire to, regardless of formal education, regardless of research supporting the findings, and regardless of social status. My life counts, as everyone else's does, in immeasurable amounts.