for 9 SEP 06: TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

(BLOGGER'S NOTE: You may find this item humorous, serious, or a little of both - but we offer these thoughts from time to time, as we keep a seventh-day Sabbath.)

Our thanks to those of you who have written us about the end of Power Frisbee of Georgia. Here's one of the e-mails, the sort you hold close to your heart and treasure for years to come....

Your dream is dead. Get over it and get a life you loser. Nobody cares about your stupid game or your loser personal life. Stick to the news or shut it down.

If you think we make up these e-mails -- no way. This is real, and unsigned. So I don't know which friend of Dr. Eric Buffong sent it....

To be honest, I could have written much of this e-mail myself over the last couple of weeks. After more than 25 years of dreaming about starting a new sport, I thought this would be like the John Feinstein bestseller: "A Season on the Brink." Now my working book title is, "A Season Over the Cliff."

Yes, I was a loser. Yup, I failed. In fact, I told a teller at the bank with the Power Frisbee account I felt like putting a big scarlet letter F on my chest. At least some people might misunderstand, and think I'm a graduate of Florida.

When I went to church last weekend and people asked how my week was, I responded to all of them: "Failing." Most of those people went right on, not seeming to notice what I said. But a visiting radio news reporter from Jacksonville did - so there's still some hope for journalism in this country.

An old quote says it's "better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all." Whoever said that obviously didn't have to pay the bills associated with a failed business.

While I know you should "never say never," the chances are very high that I'll never dream about running my own business again. All my great ideas built over decades have run out. And wouldn't you know it - just as they do, all these mills start closing....

In fact, Sunday will feel very strange for me. Not only will we NOT go to Macon for Round 4 of Power Frisbee, I don't plan to go to a field and throw frisbees at all. The dream is THAT dead - and that disc I threw into the storm drain in late August [24 Aug] was as symbolic as I feared it might be.

I can't resist comparing what I've been through with what WRCG's Antonio Carter is doing. He announced the start of the New Joshua Generation only three days before Power Frisbee's opening night [22 Aug]. Last time I checked, his project was still going - but unlike me, Carter has a board of directors. Maybe he's borrowing money from them to keep things going.

There's been a lot of free time over the last two-plus weeks for me to think about this. My big dream melted down before my eyes, literally within hours of it coming to reality. If a planet had feelings, I would have been Pluto.

But then I remembered I've passed this way before. A few years ago, I did a Bible study on failure when another business idea died. In fact, I posted it online to share with others. But I don't recall anyone ever e-mailing me about it, so maybe it was a flop as well.

One point of that article is that even if God blows up your dream (and He has the power to do that), you're not supposed to "blow up" toward Him. Instead, you're supposed to rejoice in God even when you fail -- but of course, that isn't easy. Wal-Mart's smiley faces are only so big, for disguising your emotions.

While the Power Frisbee dream is dead, not all my dreams are. And if Katie Couric is reading this blog, I invite her to contact me this weekend -- dinner's on me.

But seriously: the biggest dream of all involves being with God in a coming glorious kingdom, described in the Bible. If the ministers I've heard are wrong about that one -- well, then maybe the Muslims and Christians should quit fighting each other, and achieve a REAL dream of peace.

If our title today sounds familiar, it's the first line of a key song from the school musical in my senior year of high school -- "Man of La Mancha." I happened to have the starring role in that production, eating out the good-looking tenor in the school choir. At last report, he was selling cars for a living in southwest Missouri.

The lead in "Man of La Mancha" sings "The Impossible Dream" during act two. It's a showstopping number, which the audiences at our high school musical seemed to like. In fact, it even earned me a surprise tearful hug from a senior cheerleader after the Friday night performance - something that never seemed to happen again.

I don't sing that song much anymore, perhaps because I sang it so much preparing for the musical. But the words still offer something about the hope I have in Someone planning things much bigger than a frisbee game:

And the world will be better for this -

That one man, torn and covered with scars,

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star.

COMING SUNDAY: Questions about aging, involving a building and the candidates for mayor....

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