Living our dreams.

Field of Dreams is one of my favorite movies. It is a story about baseball, a father's relationship with his son, and living out one's dreams.

In the movie, John Kinsella was a former baseball player who never really made it. Despite his lack of success as a player, John remained an avid fan, especially of Shoeless Joe Jackson of the infamous Chicago Black Sox, a team that allegedly deliberately lost the World Series of 1919.

John wanted his son, Ray (played by Kevin Costner), to be the ballplayer he never was, and he pressured Ray to play ball and to practice all the time. Tension grew between them. Finally, when Ray was 14 years old, he told his father he'd never play catch with him again.

When Ray was 17, he packed his bags and left his Iowa home, telling his father he was ashamed of him for "believing in a criminal" (Shoeless Joe Jackson). These were comments and decisions Ray regretted for many years. They haunted him as he grew older because he never got to play catch with his father again before his father died. He never got to say he was sorry for the comment about the player and the game his dad loved so much.

But Ray eventually did get a chance for a reconciliation with his father. Listening to whispered voices instructing him, "If you build it, he will come," Ray plowed some of his Iowa cornfields and built a ball-field that possessed the magical quality of attracting the spirits of deceased ballplayers, who would come to play the game they loved so much one last time--to get one last chance to live out their dreams associated with baseball. It truly was a field of dreams.

And it worked. Many famous ballplayers, long since deceased, came. Many fans came to Ray's farm "as innocent as children looking for the past" to "watch the game and remember what it was like." Finally, at the very powerful end of the movie, Ray's own dad showed up, met Ray's wife and daughter, and, once again, played catch with his son.

Just before they began playing catch, father and son had this very interesting colloquy:

John: "Is this heaven?"

Ray: "No, this is Iowa."

John: "Iowa? I could have sworn it was heaven."

Ray: "Is there a heaven?"

John: "Oh, yeah. Heaven is a place where dreams come true."

Ray: (Pause) "Maybe this is heaven."

If, as John Kinsella told his son, heaven really is the place where dreams can come true, then it is here for us--all around us--all the time. It is here to be seen if we only open our eyes. It is here to be experienced if we only open our hearts. It is right here in our children, in our partners, and in ourselves. It is also present daily in our law practices and in our calling as the protectors of our American people.

And yet we ignore it each and every day. We lose sight of the blessings that are all around us because we are so caught up in details of daily life. We have lost sight of the larger picture because we are so worried about the bottom line.

Precious days, weeks, and years go by without our enjoying our children to the fullest, without letting our partners know how important they are to us, without taking care of ourselves, and without fulfilling our responsibilities as professionals who have the ability to help others live out what is left of their hopes and dreams.

As trial lawyers, we have been given the ability to seek justice for our clients and, indeed, for all Americans. As to our clients, we can make a difference by providing the hope that they can be free from the burdens they have had to live with because of their injuries and family losses. Whether our clients come to us with products, malpractice, soft tissue, or civil rights cases, we often provide them with their last remaining hope for justice.

We also provide hope for all Americans that corporations will be careful and not reckless in making their products, that doctors will be careful and not negligent in diagnosing and treating disease, and that insurance companies will be fair and honest in approving necessary treatment and in paying legitimate claims. Our efforts enhance the likelihood that these manufacturers, doctors, and insurance companies will toe the line of competency, decency, and fairness. The hopes and dreams of our clients and all Americans deserve no less.

We need to continue to give hope to our clients and to all Americans. We need to give our effort and energy to protecting our children and to keeping our families safe. Our giving should only be limited by our imagination, our creativity, and our vision for the future.

We each need to take a step back, out of our pressured work lives, and pay attention to our own spiritual needs and those of our loved ones. We need to dedicate time to allow ourselves to really enjoy and appreciate our blessings and not simply go through the motions.

I believe there is a lot of wisdom in John Lennon's remark that "life is what happens while you are making other plans." Our plans need to include our families as well as our law practices. This balance is critical to our personal happiness as well as our professional success.

In friendship,