“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Dreams are hard to come by these days.
We live in liminal moments, floating between the physical world and our mental and spiritual constructs — somewhere between the “real” and our dreams. When we pay attention, we can understand who we are by what we dream of, and we can live our lives to make that dream a reality. Hopefully, our dreams honor our world’s need to dream, as we seek dignity for all. Dreams that are born of integrity, lofty ideals, and courage illuminate the magnificence of human possibilities. Dreams hover above us, in perfect view of our imperfect humanity, floating lightly above, calling on us to honor our souls’ high adventure. They are sacred beacons, a light to be seen and aspired to, lifting us above the crass, brutal and selfish. “We the People,” is our foundational dream — the crucible from which our national promise was forged.
“We the people” is a timeless ideal, an end, and a means to an end. When we meld our individual dreams into collective dreams, we underwrite the ultimate source of power, derived from the consent of all people, freely given. Yet throughout our history, we have been vendors of verbal trickery, a verbal judo, where simple, generous mantras like “We the People,” “More Perfect Union,” fall sway to the language of manufactured terms like “illegal aliens,” “colorblindness” and “reverse racism” — manufactured terms that lay siege to the generosity of our collective soul. The labelers ascend to an exclusive “us”, redefining themselves as righteous people — a select, privileged group, with a license to exclude. This semantic evolution — recasting the inclusive “we” into an exclusive “us” — further marginalizes the vulnerable, defining them as property, non-citizens, aliens and Woke. These deceitful and tricky words suck the oxygen out of our human connection and excoriate our nation’s soul.
Eventually, laws follow suit: “white rights,” “reverse racism,” and “colorblind” swallow up the 14th Amendment, a guarantee for equal rights and equality. Citizens United allows corporations a ‘voice’ and unlimited funds to usurp extraordinary rights. “Big Beautiful Bills” strip women’s reproductive rights and access to personhood and voice. And the “SAVE Act” strips our access to vote. All these clever euphemisms exclude groups of people from “members-only clubs” based on race, self-serving criteria, and money. And, our culture schools us to worship these exclusive clubs that allow only those who toe the line or don the correct veneer to enter, silently shunning and stripping people of their dignity.
It’s important to remember that despite the inspired vision of our nation’s founders, the authors of our collective dream, they too were a club, a slave owning, color blind, and sexist group of white men. As Barbara Jordan, the first Black woman representative from Texas, said in 1974, “When that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that ‘We, the people.’ I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’” Despite its seminal importance, today our collective dream needs the same vigilant and farsighted protection as it did in Barbara Jordan’s era.
Sam Stableford, a student from last year, echoes Jordan’s call for more than fair-weather patriotism:
We can’t be a democratic republic that truly honors its founding ideals while millions remain trapped in structures built out of racial terror and neglect. As a Black American, I don’t experience this as a distant historical idea; it’s very personal. My existence in this country is shaped by both survival and loss, and by what generations before me built despite being stripped of so much for people who look like me. When [Bryan] Stevenson talks about truth and repair, I hear a call for both justice and healing: justice for what’s been stolen, and healing for what’s been carried in silence. I do see myself as a part of this process and as someone who can help push it forward, not just someone who is affected by the system. My part is learning, speaking, and staying involved, because, as King said, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”
Freedom isn’t individual, it’s collective. If we want to move toward the country our founding documents promised, we have to build by facing the truth, together.
The current administration leans heavily on stoking fear of the “other” to justify what they take from us. By recognizing our commonality, our common dreams and the clarity that our lives are inextricably intertwined, we diminish this fear. We feel the might of standing up for each other. We are learning the truth of Sam’s statement: “Freedom is collective.” The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh said it was possible that the next Buddha will not be an individual, but rather a community practicing understanding and loving kindness — a Buddhist notion aligned with “We the People.” Dreaming together has the power of an exponential function. Our collective imagination brings meaning, resilience and vitality to our existence and hones essential biological instincts that favor cooperation, equality and collective hope — the same neural and evolutionary mechanisms that help us thrive as a species (thank you, Darwin).
Our country’s foundational dream was, and is, wildly ambitious, complicated, messy and extravagantly inspiring. Our dream is an exquisite gift. Today, we are called upon to stand up for that dream. To rise up, as King saw, to unfold the promise of this country. Because to explore this mysterious existence together — on this small pale blue dot we call Earth — is the most beautiful thing the universe has dreamed up.