‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. (Act 2:17)
Each Spring, thousands of high school students graduate to a dead end. It doesn’t matter how talented, gifted, smart or energetic they are. They’ve simply reached the end of the line. Unless the United States Senate acts now to pass the DREAM Act. These young people are called Dreamers because the DREAM Act is in part for them. To me they are prophets and visionaries. I want my senator to be the dreamer.
December 18 is International Migrant Day — the day the US Senate votes on the DREAM Act.
The scripture says young men and women prophesy and see visions. That’s my experience. Young people see the horizon of their lives stretching before them, and their visionary perspective leads them down unimaginable paths. It’s the older adults who need to become dreamers again, to forsake their cynical attitudes, and to believe in a better world unfolding for the youth of this country.
The DREAM Act addresses the reality that thousands of children were brought to this country without authorization, and now they have grown up here. They are persons without a country if we do not accept them. They are already the friends of our children, the stars of our local sports teams, the youth at the church’s carwash fundraiser. Most of them don’t realize that they are not officially Americans until they start applying for college or try to enlist in the military. That’s when they lack the proper papers.
The DREAM ACT has numerous controls to prevent abuse and to limit its benefits to those who have been in this country for a long time. It’s not amnesty because these children have done nothing wrong. (By the way, amnesty is a good word; it means the powerful act with the forgiveness of God, as in “I will remember your sins no more”). Rather, the DREAM Act is very much about the rest of us: it says we are a society that does not throw children away.
That feels like a Christmas story to me. So I’m praying for a Christmas miracle that the DREAM Act passes. Every US Senator of faith ought take up this same prayer without excuse. Let us be a nation that saves children and youth. Sen. LeMieux, listen to the angels singing, Peace on Earth and goodwill to all!
A video of faith advocates and dreamers in the Hart Building lobby of the US Senate Offices.
PBS Faith and Ethics video on the December 14 Interfaith Rally (Interview of Rev. Meyer at the end.)
We are all immigrants spiritually, always moving toward God, or away from God, but migrating nonetheless. To be in favor of immigrants is to be in favor of ourselves.
Rev. Russell L. Meyer
Information on the DREAM Act: