It was Robert Kennedy's favorite song. When sung by Jack Jones in
1966, it topped the Billboard charts...for one week anyway. Most
everyone is familiar with it. It's the kind of musical composition that
many people just have to stop what they are doing and listen. Man Of La Mancha ran for 2328 performances on Broadway in 1965 and was brought back to the Great White Way four times after that. The song of course is The Impossible Dream. The musical based on the classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The following are some selected verses:
To right the unrightable wrong
To fight the unbeatable foe
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
I may have lived under a dream like this in my younger years. I had enough influences to do so anyway. Again...Robert Kennedy....my hero as a teenager....he quoted poet Robert Frost in his address to the Democrat National Convention in 1964 in Atlantic City. Referring President Kennedy's admiration for the Poet Laureate, RFK recited.....
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
It's kind of a running tete-a-tete in our home....my wife will be retiring for the evening and I'll be working on a post....."Coming to bed?" she will ask......and I'll invariably answer with...."I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
So where am I going with this post? This is not the Christian life, that of this romantic and idealistic errant knight, and I'm thankful that I became aware of this early on. We may indeed have an overwhelming passion. William Wilberforce certainly had one.....eliminating the slave trade in England. Stonewall Jackson was consumed with victory on the battlefield more than anyone I have ever read about. Ted Cruz has one now, but these men were and are more than consumed with something else, that being following their Lord and Savor Jesus Christ. There is a big difference!
It's not an impossible dream that we live. It is a hope as certain as the earth that bears our carbon footprint. Satan is not an unbeatable foe, for he has already been defeated. Any and all of our sins can be categorized as 'unrightable wrongs.' Wrongs that we cannot make propitiation for to the Father....but Jesus has already done that...and offers this glorious salvation through belief in His name! And it was Jesus who marched into Hell... to keep us from having to do so.
The lyricist did have one thing right. Because of One Man.....scorned and covered with scars....the world will one day be a better place!
To right the unrightable wrong
To fight the unbeatable foe
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
I may have lived under a dream like this in my younger years. I had enough influences to do so anyway. Again...Robert Kennedy....my hero as a teenager....he quoted poet Robert Frost in his address to the Democrat National Convention in 1964 in Atlantic City. Referring President Kennedy's admiration for the Poet Laureate, RFK recited.....
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
It's kind of a running tete-a-tete in our home....my wife will be retiring for the evening and I'll be working on a post....."Coming to bed?" she will ask......and I'll invariably answer with...."I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
So where am I going with this post? This is not the Christian life, that of this romantic and idealistic errant knight, and I'm thankful that I became aware of this early on. We may indeed have an overwhelming passion. William Wilberforce certainly had one.....eliminating the slave trade in England. Stonewall Jackson was consumed with victory on the battlefield more than anyone I have ever read about. Ted Cruz has one now, but these men were and are more than consumed with something else, that being following their Lord and Savor Jesus Christ. There is a big difference!
It's not an impossible dream that we live. It is a hope as certain as the earth that bears our carbon footprint. Satan is not an unbeatable foe, for he has already been defeated. Any and all of our sins can be categorized as 'unrightable wrongs.' Wrongs that we cannot make propitiation for to the Father....but Jesus has already done that...and offers this glorious salvation through belief in His name! And it was Jesus who marched into Hell... to keep us from having to do so.
The lyricist did have one thing right. Because of One Man.....scorned and covered with scars....the world will one day be a better place!
