Losing the Capacity to Dream

"When you lose the capacity to dream, then you lose the capacity to love." These words are a quote from Pope Francis during a talk he gave on the family. In an article in the Peace Weekly, the columnist laments the loss of dreaming among the young.

When you want something and the possibility is there to achieve what one desires but no dream, we have an unhealthy society. Meeting a young person with dreams is not easy. The columnist has asked many young people about their dreams and the response is: "I don't know."  "I don't have one."

Our education system is set up as a preparation for the next step in education: middle school preparation for high school and high school for college. He mentions asking a class what their dream was for the future and the same answer came back but one student answered with a low voice: "teacher". The student sitting behind him patted him on the back and said:  "Hey you bloke, have you forgotten that you are not  good in studies?"

From the last years  of the 1990s, teachers, and civil servants are considered good occupations. Only a little raise in the salaries but a guaranteed lifestyle has made them popular.

We are persons who exist to dream. When we feel a  lack of something and have a strong desire to attain it, we have a dream. It makes us want to live and enjoy life. Living in a society with grownups we are helped to have dreams. In our society, unless a student has outstanding marks the  possibility of being a teacher is impossible and the competition is great.

Without dreams life becomes hell. Is this not the reason for suicides and the desire not to have children? What is the Church to do in this kind of society? What needs to be done if we are to be a light and the salt of the earth? Even though the solution may be beyond our control, we need to work to change the environment in which we live. What can be done?

In one of the diocese, they have decided to build a lighthouse and center for migrants living in Korea. It will be set aside for the migrants in Korea as a gift. They have come to Korea for economic reasons and  the church wants to give them a sense of worth by this splendid building for their use.

The Seoul Diocese also wanting workers to dream,  has a goal to examine the working conditions of workers and their needs, and work to realize this in their advocacy for concrete  programs in the diocese to bring this about.

It is important to work to overcome the ways of the world  but more important is to live our lives correctly. We need to work for a society in which  all the members can dream.