BRM 2017 March Special Edition 2017 | Page 31

Where Will I Dance? Where will I Dream? Where Will I Sing?

A Personal Reflection on the Demise of a Virtual Community

By DeGrey

I am obesely over-weight with a bad heart and two bad legs … where will I dance?

I am a shut-in living in a nursing home trapped in a steel chair … where will I dream?

I am alone … where will I share my song … where will I sing?

I know a couple who were living a lonely, separate existence until they met and learned to love.

I know a gentle soul from a foreign country that I would never have met.

I have shared sports stories with fans from around the world and discussed teams and towns I never knew existed.

I have dreamed of being a regular in a bar ‘where everyone knows your name’.

I have swam with sharks and stingrays and climbed through tree-houses and mushroom forests.

I have succeeded at that business venture I never had the resources to organize and operate.

I have walked and talked through communities of people who until now I could only read about in a book.

I have shared the global political perspective and discovered as much as we are different we are much more the same.

I now grieve the loss of an enchanted island where you could climb a mountain or stroll through a jungle.

I now know the pain of the “trail of tears” by being forced to migrate from my community… my home… my island.

I stand in testimony that the pursuit of wealth goes far beyond the numbers in a bank account.

I kneel ready to meet my Maker in the hope of being able to say, ‘I contributed to my community.’