TODAY IN MISSION YEARBOOK
Mission Yearbook: Dreaming through the darkness is the message for Triennium attendees
“I was born a dreamer,” said the Rev. Dr. Peggy Jean (“PJ”) Craig, who preached on the third night at the Presbyterian Youth Triennium worship service.
Craig shared a photo of her high school superlative title, “Biggest Dreamer,” with the crowd of young people gathered at the Louisville International Convention Center in the midst of LED-lit nightscapes.
“When I heard about this year’s theme for Triennium, ‘As If We Were Dreaming,’ I got super excited,” said Craig, because, she explained, “I actually have some skills and expertise in this area.”
However, when she learned her particular night’s theme was “facing the nightmares,” she recoiled. “I don’t want to talk about nightmares. This is my nightmare, talking about nightmares.”
But “it’s in the midst of nightmares in real life that God is present,” said Craig. Craig invoked the God who gave dreams, visions and hope to Joseph in the Book of Genesis and wondered if Joseph would have been voted “biggest dreamer” by his peers. Maybe that was why his brothers were jealous of him — because he dared to dream. When he told them about his dreams, the brothers were threatened, because they were the kind of dreams that could come true. Joseph’s brothers set out to punish him.
Craig, who grew up in a multiracial family in rural Alabama, currently pastors Covenant Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Tennessee, serving immigrant and Latinx neighbors. As a community builder and passionate advocate for justice, Craig said she has “always been drawn to the margins,” where she’s helped many people face the nightmares of systemic injustice and seek their own wholeness.
“The dreams that get you killed, kicked or locked out and dismissed are the ones that are possible,” said Craig: “You can kill a person, but a dream, especially if it’s from God, you cannot annihilate.”
She compared this kind of dream to Communion. “Broken into all those little pieces, where it spreads and grows, passed around and practiced when it can no longer stay in one body or one mouth, the dream becomes a dream for many bodies and many mouths, which is terrifying to people who for their whole lives have benefited by keeping things controlled and status quo.”
In Memphis, where Craig lives, she can walk to the Lorraine Hotel, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. She described the plaque underneath the balcony where King was shot that quotes the King James Version of Genesis: “They said to one another, ‘Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him, and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.’”
Craig described how Joseph’s and King’s dreams were deeply threatening, because they meant “that we have to change the way we live.” It was not just Joseph’s dream that set out to change how his brothers in Egypt lived, but his actions towards them.
Craig warned not to oversimplify the ending of the famous verse, “what you intended for evil, God intended for good.” She explained how Joseph does not gloss over the trauma or explain it as a means to a necessary end. Instead, Joseph names the trauma that his brothers caused, refuses to transmit more pain and suffering, and brings restoration to his family. Craig draws a connection to the restoration that Joseph is able to bring to his family to the restoration possible at the Communion table.
“I don’t know what kind of nightmares you are facing right now,” she said before adding, “I don’t know if you’ve been betrayed, hurt or abandoned or if you’ve done that to others.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been dismissed, degraded or made to feel less than by family, friends or the church, and if so, I am so, so sorry on behalf of the church,” said Craig, pointing behind her to the Communion table. “This is not the church’s table. This is God’s table, and it is God’s dream to restore, to reconcile, to remember us in a way that we thought not possible.”
“Keep dreaming, dreamers! Dream on and then trust God to do what God always does: remember us into something we could not have dreamed up on our own.”
Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Julie Mullins, Acquisitions Editor, Publishing & Editorial, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
David Myers, Director, IT Finance & Administration, Information Technology, The Board of Pensions
Let us pray:
Protect us, O God, and give us compassion to help one another when life becomes overwhelming Inspire us to always look to you for grace, hope, and love, and may we always share these gifts with those around us. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.