Noll's Thought for January 1, 2012

Rev. Roy Crawford - 317

Air Castles -- Dreams -- and Resolutions

I have built a lot castles during my time. Some of them have been very stately and pretensions. Kings and Queens have visited them. I'm speaking of air castles. But none of them are standing now. Storms and stress and weak materials have taken their toll and they lie in heaps of rubble and wreckage. They tie on the spots where I erected them with such painstaking care and ambitious enthusiasm.

I've built them and I've seen them tumble down. But I built more castles. I never lived in any of them very long. Many of them just were not livable. Others cost too much to keep up. And many of them were too far away from where I made my living. I suppose I will keep on building castles as long as live. At least as long as I can draw the blue-prints and find enough imaginary stuff to use for building materials.

I've dreamed a lot, too. Some of my dreams were nightmares. Others were very, very pleasant and I was real disappointed when I awoke and knew that they were just dreams, sometimes I was sitting and thinking. Often I was just sitting. Many a time I had to leave my dream because some duty called, Or someone had something for me to do, Now and then I decided to change to another dream; it was no good, and then I had forgotten what the first dream was, So I said to myself, "What's the use?" I think I will go out and hoe the garden. Or maybe I will listen to someone else tell me his dream. But his dream wasn't interesting, because it was his dream and not mine.

I also dreamed of things that could be done, something I could do. And I got up and went to work. And I did it. I have always noticed that I never finish anything that I don't ever start. There seems to have to be a beginning to everything that ever is.

Now, let's think about this thing of New Year's Resolutions. They are like building air castles and day dreaming. I make a list of things I'm going to do. And I really intend to do them. But one by one I pass them by or just throw them over the fence. I'm guessing, though, that you didn't do much last year that you hadn't planned or promised to do. So if you kept even part of your resolutions and did them, it was worth it. It might be interesting to figure out the percentage of them that really paid off. The dividends may have been higher than you think.

So, I'm going to make more resolutions for 1959. And l venture to say that, come next December 3I, I will have something to show for them. I know if I don't start out to do something in 1959, I won't have anything done when the gong sounds at the end.

I'll build a great tall castle that reaches high. I may live on the ground in its shadow, where the potatoes grow. But I will have fun watching the walls go up. And if it fails, I'll pick up a rock from the debris and use it for a paper weight. I'll show it to my friends and say, "Here is a stone from the finest castle I ever built. I'm going to dream. The dreams may not all come true. I don't want you to check up too closely on me at the end of the year. Please don't remind me, then, of how much I did not get done. I may make a very poor showing, but the good Lord will give me credit for trying. I'll bet you.