What is the American Dream? (short version)

[A column I wrote over four years ago, which is under my May 30, 2004 post, seems timely today. So, I revised it to fit current specifications for columns appearing in the local chain of suburban Cincinnati newspapers for which I write, and submitted the following.]

Today, when people talk about 'the American Dream,' they seem to view it as a synonym for making lots of money. But that isn't how the phrase was originally used in the early part of the twentieth century.

From the perspective of the phrase's originator, the American Dream is about two things.

First, it's the dream of being free: free to worship as one wishes, free to speak one's mind and to effect what happens in government, free to choose the career path that seems best for us, free to get an education, free to marry whomever we wish to marry, and so on.

Second, it's the dream that our freedom can be kept in tension with the responsibility that each of us bears to treat our neighbor with respect and consideration.

Freedom within a community of caring. That's the American Dream.

It's true that the United States is flawed and that our reality rarely matches our ideals. We must admit that there have been terrible things done by our country.

But when we Americans are at our best, it's when we live out this American Dream. It happens when we let each other enjoy the freedom this country was founded to bring and when we care for others.

For me, the American Dream is best articulated in the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. Written by Emma Lazarus, it says nothing about money or possessions and reads in part:

"'Give me your tired, your poor,
'Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
'The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
'Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me,
'I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"

The real American Dream is a vision of a land (and a world) in which every person is free to be all that God made them to be and where every person is committed to helping others fulfill that same destiny.

There is so much more to being an American or a human being than how much we possess. The penetrating question of Jesus Christ challenges us to see that. "What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose...themselves?" Jesus asks. His question helps us to see what we can readily observe in America today: It's possible to have fat wallets and empty lives.

The only way we can have a society characterized by freedom within a community of caring is if we turn to Jesus, God-in-the-flesh. Jesus gives us the relationships with God and neighbor we need to use freedom wisely and to share it with our neighbor.

I'm not perfect. (Just ask my family and friends.) But when I turn my life to Jesus Christ, He gives me the confidence and security I need to be who God made me to be. He also gives me the confidence and security to let others be who God made them to be.

The American Dream has little to do with politics, even less with economics. And the surest route to living the real American Dream--freedom in a community of caring--is through Jesus Christ. Let's follow Him and make the dream a reality!