Man of La Mancha

The play by Dale Wasserman based on the book, Man of La Mancha, was most enjoyable, especially the music.  The production of the play was very good.  The two basic story lines within it were interesting but the theme of the “impossible dream” tugged at my heart a bit and generated a lot of thought. 

The theme song said it all:

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest to follow that star

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To fight for the right without question or pause

To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man, scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To fight the unbeatable foe

To reach the unreachable star  

Moving words. They did tug at my heart strings because the story is about a man who most consider is ‘nuts’, Don Quixote. He goes on a quest to change his world for the better*. He does this by, in his mind, becoming a knight. In his quest (as written above), among other things, he meets a ‘damsel in distress’ Aldonza, but calls her, by the name he gives her, Dulcinea.  She is the inn’s serving girl and a part-time prostitute.  Don Quixote sees her as the ‘dream-ideal’ of his quest.  But Aldonza sees herself as she really is, not as Don Quixote sees her….as a person of worth and value and treats her so. By the end of the play, Aldonza catches his dream and sees herself as Don Quixote sees her and takes her new name.  

But as this story line touched my heart, I realized that what Don  Quixote’s quest is not what I know. Don’t get me wrong, I have dreams, but in reality, I don’t need to dream it as I need to pursue the reality of who I am in light of what God has created me to me. (Could it be His dream for me?) I don’t pursue windmills and pretend they are the challenges we face within life and culture. The windmills in the story Don Quixote may represent the impossibility of fulfilling one's quest if they are not grounded in reality. Another possible interpretation is that the windmills represent culture, the destruction of the good in the past, and/or the loss of honor and integrity. For me, it is in a culture that is lost by not seeking God. But being a Christian it is possible to contend with and be part of the transformation of our world, our culture because we are with God.

The beauty of being a Christian is that we do have a quest…to bring the Kingdom of God to bear upon the earth. Because God is, and that is His calling for us, we are to pursue it. We don’t need to live in a pretend world to do that. The reality of God calls us to live on this earth, pursuing and living out the greatest commandment to ‘love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul and our strength’ and ‘loving our neighbor as one’s self’ (see Deuteronomy 6:8 and Jesus add: Mark 12:31).

This is not impossible.  Maybe challenging at times but not impossible.  God calls us to do this, to see people, all people as persons of worth because He created them and then we are to lead them, guide them to a way of life that gives them purpose, meaning, hope and His peace, that they would never have without Him.  

It is impossible without God but with Him, and the power of His Holy Spirit within us, it is a blessed hope, a hope that has not yet fully been fulfilled but will be in His time. We need to realize that we do not need to see things through rose colored glasses, but see the reality, and seek transformation and redemption of that reality, even if only ‘one person at a time’.  That is what Jesus did.  Max Lucado alluded to that in a way when he wrote: “Peter was in a storm before he walked on water. Lazarus was in a grave before he came out of it. The demoniac was possessed before he was a preacher, and the paralytic was on a stretcher before he was in your Bible.” Jesus took reality and changed the context of who we think we are to who God knows us to be.  He takes the storms, the life of the ‘living’ dead, the possessed, and the paralytic and transforms them. Our quest is to seek to be the hands, feet and heart of Christ for others who struggle without God in their lives. 

And one last thing, we don’t seek to dream about what we want to be, we seek what God would have us to be. We can’t do that alone. Don Quixote had a side kick, Sancho.  But Jesus is not a side kick pointing us to reality, but our Lord and our Savior who, with His Spirit, walks with us in reality. This is not an impossible dream for us as believers but God given present reality.  

Thanks be to God.

Quentin

Sharecropper’s Inheritance

Lent, 2025  

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Side bar: Many years ago, one of my closest friends called me a Don Quixote, which I am assuming was a compliment, at least this is how I want to remember it. I sought to make a difference in the lives of others.  But I did not walk that road alone.  God the Father, called me; Christ the Son was with me, and the Holy Spirit empowered me. There were moments when I let hope slip by me, when challenges overwhelmed me, emotional pain subdued me but the Trinity of God was with me, providing what I needed to continue on His quest. 

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (HCSB/Q) 26 Brothers and sisters, consider your calling: Not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. 27 Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 28 God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, 29 so that no one can boast in His presence. 30 But it is from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written: The one who boasts must boast in the Lord.