If It's A Dream, Don't Wake Me

I remember a song from the sixties. Yes, a folk song...a protest song...a song of hope. That's what they sang in the sixties (so a lot of folks think, but I'm thinking the Beatles were pretty big then, too). Anyway, it was called The Strangest Dream. It was written by Ed McCurdy and sung by lots of artists including Arlo Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, and Simon & Garfunkel.
In the song he tells about this dream in which the entire world agrees to sign a treaty agreeing to end war. Forever. It tells of the important men in a big room signing the papers and that once they were signed they joined hands and prayed grateful prayers.
And then the song says, the people in the streets below were dancing round and round.
Imagine that, people dancing in the streets for joy because of some momentous, world-changing decision. One that incited peaceful, gleeful, hopeful celebration.
I saw a day like that.
November 4, 2008 after the presidential election was called for Barack Obama.
Annie called from Manhattan and said listen to this! She held her cell phone out the window of her apartment that sits just half a block off Broadway at 116th. And I could hear the sound of many voices, shouting, singing, laughing.
She said they'd shut down Broadway completely. That people had spontaneously come out from their homes into the street to simply dance and be glad. On the television we caught glimpses of this celebration along with those in other parts of the country and world.
Imagine that.
I am told that the night Tom Brokaw broadcast from Berlin the fall of that dreaful wall that NBC news caught footage of east German school children singing that song. People danced then, too.

There are these rare moments in life, moments born of liberation, in which our spirits are totally caught up with those of others....and all we can do is dance.
We had such a moment.
Praise God.
We had such a moment.