In 1903, James Allen wrote in  As A Man Thinketh that the dreamers are the world’s saviors.

I confess that I am a dreamer; as the visible world is sustained by the invisible, I hope the dreamers will rise again and save the world.

It is hard to be a Dreamer in America today; the money changers have taken over the temples, the fields, and the lives of most everyone.

But I am not discouraged or gloomy; I believe dreamers really are the saviors of the world, and their work is not measured in victories but over time and out of sight.

Humankind, through all of its conflicts, greed, hatred, and cruelty, is still nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers, the powerless and often invisible creatives who refuse to let their ideals fade and die.

Beautiful visions live within them; the world knows them as the realities which we shall all one day see and know.

Artists, writers, composers, painters, poets, prophets, (bloggers), wrote Allen, “are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven.”

Insofar as the world is beautiful, it is because the dreamers have lived; without them, it is difficult to imagine humanity plodding on at all.

They have given us all the beautiful buildings, art, music, words, and images throughout time.

In America in 2020, the Dreamers are invisible, pushed to the edges of society, powerless, banished from the great discussions of media, ignored by the people with power and the CEOs and the great universities’ deans.

They are seen as naive, weak-minded, a danger to big money and the capitalist juggernaut.

They seem outdated and in decline – they dream of a world where the poor and the needy are loved and cared for, where we pause to look at beautiful things, where we show mercy to the animals, and where working people can live in pride and dignity without exploitation, where doctors and medicine are free and available.

That makes us dangerous.

Those very ancient, mostly Christian ideas are in decline, repudiated even by millions of Christians as feckless, misguided, unfair, traitorous.

I am very proud to be a dreamer; those are my visions; those are my ideas; they live in me; I believe those are the values and realities that shall one day be known.

I understand that my values are invisible to most people; they are hardly mentioned any longer in our presidential campaigns. I am no God; people don’t have to believe in me or the people like me.

People who dream of them are considered too naive and foolish to warrant public office in the new global economy, the Corporate Nation.

The mystics of the Kabbalah and early Christianity believe that he who creates a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

“Cherish your visions,” wrote Allen,  “cherish your visions, cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will, at last, be built.”

I love reading these words; these are words, for right now, words for the embattled and weary and discouraged dreamers of the world, trawling for hope.

It is tough on dreamers in the digital age. Gloom and fear travel much more quickly than beautiful visions; they stick and breed and frighten.

Dan wrote this message to me this morning after I expressed some hope in the future for a gentler, more caring country:

“Jon, I wish I could share your optimism that the Republican leaders will wipe the Trump stain off of themselves as soon as he departs. I’m convinced they are less intimidated by him than the 70 million Trump supporters who can oust incumbents in a primary as fast as a tweet. Jeff Sessions may agree. His power of personality, some go so far as to compare to a cult, tells me Trump will hold real power over the primary voters, and incumbents dare not cross the line. 2022 primary races start soon.”

I wrote back to  Dan that I was a dreamer, and we can’t be pessimists, or there would be no life for us.  The future is unknowable for me, I live in the present.

My optimism is not a matter of politics, but of something else, really: James Allen’s idea of dreaming. Without hope, the dreamer and the artist perishes and withers away, and I no longer believe that the meaning of my life is in the hands of politicians, blue or red.

I live with a dreamer; we dream together.

For me, creativity is all about hope and optimism. That’s what we do, said Joseph Campbell; the artist’s role is to give shape to the color and light of the world.

To desire is to achieve; to aspire is to obtain. To lose hope and surrender to the dark angels is to die a spiritual and creative death.

In his book, Allen asked, “shall man’s basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the law or the future; such a condition of things can never obtain “Ask and receive.”

Dreamers are a secret society; we hope, we imagine…we dream. The writer in his study, the artist in her studio. We dream, make beautiful visions and send them out into the harsh world to live or die.

It is not for us to say that we are right or to believe that we are wrong.

It is enough to feel. I dream lofty dreams, and so shall I be. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the seed in the Geranium, the bird, waits on the egg. In the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs.

Dreams and hope are the seedlings of what can come to be.

The thoughtless, the angry, the ignorant, and the barren have their own dreams and visions; their faith is luck, domination, fear,  fortune, and chance. They are entitled to their visions; I am entitled to mine. May the best vision live and prosper.

Dan has the right to look at the world in any he wants; he reads like a thoughtful and caring man. But we see the world in different ways. I dream the future with open eyes; he sees the present and surrenders the future.

I wrote back and said that  I would not presume to tell him he is wrong or that I am right.  That’s the game of the pundit and the poll taker.

Pain is inevitable in our world; suffering is a choice. He made his choice; I make mine.

I am humbled by now; I’m beginning to be old.

I can’t know who is right and who is wrong; it’s not a contest; I have no idea who will prevail or when or for how long or in what way.

The dreamer is safe from pessimism; his beautiful vision is of a better world.  “I couldn’t survive as a pessimist, ” Maria told me after  reading this piece, “I just couldn’t do it.”

Wrote Allen: “The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by, this you will become.”