TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

a song by Joe Darrin,

from "Man of La Mancha,"

a musical play by Dale Wasserman

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,

Then 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 reach the unreachable star.

TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

                                       Part 1

Is the unending search for Truth

Akin to dreaming the impossible dream?

What is it that drives a person

To question everything

In a passionate quest for Truth?

Why can the seeker not be satisfied

With any given system of truth

But always must seek Truth

Beyond the edges of established reality?

So much easier it would be

To be content with the given answers

To the allowable questions.

Is it an impossible dream

To hunger and thirst for Truth?

Can such hunger be assuaged?

Is the search for Truth

An impossible dream itself?

Is it the quest that counts

And not the answers?

If we think we have caught

Truth in our hands

When we open our hands to the light

Do we find we really hold nothing at all?

Is the search for Truth

The same as the search for God?

Can the hunger and thirst

Be satisfied only by standing

In the Presence of the Divine

Truth and Love and Beauty?

                                      Part 2

Is it an impossible dream

To dream of Love?

Is Love as illusive

As Truth?

Is the quest for Love

Akin to the quest for Truth

And the quest for Beauty?

Is the lover

A lover of Truth and Beauty?

Are Love, Truth, Beauty

Like a pot of gold

At the end of the rainbow?

But to pursue

Love, Truth and Beauty

Transforms the pursuer

And we become

What we pursue.

With the pursuit

We metamorphose

And beome butterflies

Ever flying

Towards the end of the rainbow

And gradually

We become one with the rainbow

Not even noticing it

Until one day we realize

The object of the pursuit

And the pursuer

Have become one.

By Sister Ioanna
St. Innocent Monastic Community,
Redford, MI