Chapter 4: Hope finds a home

Erica, back with chapter four of Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland. What a whirlwind! Just when I thought Bill Strickland had been endowed with a Midas touch, I read about some dark days in the history of the Manchester Bidwell Center. Strickland had accepted a "dream job" managing the Center, only to find that he'd taken on a crumbling physical structure, a legal and financial tangle, and a student body so bereft that it sucked the hope out of him. He attempted to drown out despair at a local bar, which "gave [him] a place to hide as [he] drifted down, waiting to touch bottom." What pulled Strickland, and ultimately the Center, out of a downward spiral was a seemingly impossible dream: to build a structure of beauty, a place of magical light, a place of respect and substance. The story of how he follows this dream and achieves the funding to make it possible is amazing. As the pieces fall into place, we see how threads from the past weave together to form the structure of the Center's future. Corporate sponsors, new departments, and additions to the program grow out of past relationships and connections. "My dream," writes Strickland, "which was based on nothing more substantial than a hunger for meaning and purpose and the most outrageous, impossible kind of hope, had been turned into literal reality." Strickland is quick to point out that the success of the Center was not so much a work of strategy or brilliant intention, but a place that was born out of the desperate pursuit of his dream. It did not come without cost or hardship, but the dream did become reality. And hope has a home there. Prison Plate photo by nAncY. Used with permission. Post written by Erica Hale. Continued thoughts on Chapter four: The Practical Power of a Well-Founded Dream at LL's Seedlings in Stone, Visionary at Laura's Wellblog, Impossible Dreams at Erica's These Three Remain.