Super Powers and God's Plans

I had a dream the other night that I had been granted superpowers.  I could fly, which was awesome.  I also had super strength and could move things with my mind.  

At one point in my dream, I was combating some evil villain in the middle of a city, Avengers-style.  It was fantastic.  

Then I woke up and I was back in my aching middle-aged body, which had been twisted into a painful position because my cat is a bed-hog.  I listened to all of my joints pop and complain as I got up and staggered downstairs to make coffee.  

"Nothing super about this," I thought ruefully.  

Later that morning, I got to thinking about the idea of superpowers, and how different my life would be if I had them.  Then I began imagining which powers would be the coolest to have...  ahem...  I mean the most helpful to humankind. 

Listen, you can judge me for daydreaming, but where do you think all these Devo ideas come from?  Also, I figure that we all do this from time to time.  At least I hope so because I'd hate to think I was the only one. 

Anyway, I decided I would like to have the power to control people with my thoughts.  Also, super strength... and the ability to fly...  and maybe the ability to see the future.  That would be fairly awesome.  

I'd want to change the world with these powers.  I'd want to do great things.  I imagine that I could solve so many problems, avert so many crises.  Maybe, just maybe I'd be able to achieve world peace.  

We all want to do great things, don't we?  When we're young we dream about how we'll change the world, make a difference, do good, fight evil...  And then we grow up, and then we get older.  

And then we wake up from those dreams in our ordinary bodies, living ordinary lives, in very ordinary ways.  And we wonder what sort of cruel joke it is to give us the gift of dreams that are destined to go unfulfilled.  

Ah, but that's the beauty of dreams, isn't it?  They sometimes offer up a reflection of the person we long to be, the person we secretly wish to become, and there is nothing wrong with that... at all.  

I have this notion that those dreams we have may hold a clue as to how God sees us, and also how we can become our best and truest selves.  In fact, Fr. Thomas Keating offered up some wisdom on this very thing: 

The divine plan is to transform human nature into the divine, not by giving it some special role or exceptional powers, but by enabling it to live an ordinary life with extraordinary love. 

We may be very ordinary. but we have the power of the extraordinary love of God within us.  This love is the kind of love that healed the sick, transformed lives, changed the world, and even conquered death.  

You don't need a superhero cape, or the power to leap tall buildings.  All you need is to embrace your eternal destiny to live your life with extraordinary love, and that will be more than enough to change the world... one moment at a time. 

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.