Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. – actor James Dean
He lived only twenty-four years. September 30, 1955 was a day of which James Dean lived only a part. By 6 p.m. that evening, he was dead, killed in a car crash. "I’m trying to find the courage to be tender in my life," he said once. "Only the gentle are truly strong."
I wonder if he was thinking that as he raced his car to his death. If you watch James Dean in the classic film, "Rebel Without A Cause," you can see conflict in his face. His ability to portray human angst was perhaps what marked him as the genius actor that he was. The rest of us, including most caregivers, develop professional masks to hide the conflict we feel below the surface…
Dean’s calling was to portray the truth of his angst in film, to show us, on the big screen, what we often feel. And as we watch him looming luminescent on that screen, perhaps we resonate with the war among the courageous, the violent and the tender in ourselves.
Dean dreamed giant visions and some of them came true. He poured so much passion, luck, persistence, skill and, ultimately, misfortune into his stunningly short life that he became better known than any of us will ever be.
But our goal as caregivers is not to be famous. It is to dream of living for others in ways that may engage the eternal soul. The life of love is a certain kind of dream that calls us to live inside the need of another so that we may meet that need. To do so, we must give up selfish desires.
As they shined the light of their love into the shadows of Calcutta’s back streets, Mother Theresa and her small band of nuns dreamed only of serving God. As they nurtured the terminally ill, they planted seeds of kindness in each moment they lived.
"Violent people are really weak people," Dean said, in a line remarkably appropriate to our times. Although he died a violent death, what we see in Dean’s three incredible films are the eyes of a courageously tender man in love with life. He was a person who lived passionately because he knew he might die at any moment.
What is our dream? Do we ever live as if we would die today? For some day will be our last.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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