hope

Advent 2022 – Cradling the Light (Hope)

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I love candles. The glow of a single flame banishing complete darkness in a single ring of light. One our way to meeting/church, I pointed out the sky to my daughter, a spot where the black rain clouds were broken and streaks of brilliant blue sky showed through. The light beyond the darkness, the sun waiting after the rain. I love a rainy day as much as the next introvert but in that moment, it was a lovely reminder of the vividness of hope, even the smallest notion of it. We can cup our hands around hope’s candle flame, feel the warmth of it, heat that could burn if one gets too close but can deeply warm if held gently.

As we enter this time of Advent, of expectation in the Christmas season, I want to take your hands, Friendly Reader, and place a bit of hope in them once more. Hope is always present, always available in whatever moment we need it, but particularly powerful in its small doses. Just enough hope to fill a candle flame is plenty, because that means that it is not totally dark. There is light. There is hope.

Our eyes hold on to light, they seek it out, even the merest pinprick of it. In 1941, vision scientist Selig Hecht, worked out that, with a clear, unobstructed view, the human eye could see a candle light flickering about 30 miles away. As long as there is light to be found, there is also hope. Hope of leaving the tunnel, hope of morning after a night of storms, hope of finding what has been lost. Our eyes cradle light, for we cannot see without it. So, in a sense, we are always on the lookout for hope, to find it, cradle it, and let its light dance in our eyes like a candle flame.

Stepping into Advent, into the beautiful chaos of the holidays, I want to cradle hope’s light, to hold it close against the darkening days of winter, against the difficult responsibilities and realities. I don’t only want to cradle it for myself but to share it with those who may also need it, those whose candle flame feels weak and sputtering. Hope and light are ultimately meant to be shared. Many little flames can create a great light, as we all know. May our cradled lights create a glow of hope that breaks up the darkness and remind us in love and faith and gentleness that everything will be okay.

No matter what holiday you celebrate, if any, hope is for you, Friendly Reader. No matter what you are expected or yearning for, hop is there for you. Here in your cupped hands, your candle flame, your light of hope is right here. Hold on to it, but keep an eye out for those whose light is low. Let’s help each other hold on to hope.

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Advent 2021: The Light of Hope

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It seemed impossible to fathom that 2021 could be harder than 2020 in any way and yet…it is easy to see that it has surpassed all those non-expectations. In many ways, 2021 has proven indelibly harder on our hearts, minds, and bodies than the previous year. In that difficulty, hope has often seemed to wane. As we enter this season of Advent, of preparation and arrival, let us not allow despair and difficulty to rob us of that most blessed gift: hope. 

Hope is an everyday treasure. In Neil Gaiman’s famous series The Sandman, two characters have a contest, a seemingly simple game but with dire stakes.  It is The Oldest Game, a game of imagination with each character trying to best the other, to come up with the Final Idea.

One character claims, “I am the dark, the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds…of everything.” 

Into the bleakness they painted, Dream of the Endless replied…simply, powerfully:  “I am Hope.”  

To this there can be no reply, no defeat, no destruction because hope is everywhere to be found. In every heart and mind, in every space in life. As the poet Alexander Pope wrote, hope springs eternal. No matter how we suffer, how we hurt, or how little light can be seen, our eyes will always seek out and find it–even the merest pinprick of light in the darkness, the tiniest bit of hope to cling to.

“I am Hope,” is God’s gentle whisper to worn and weary hearts at this onset of Advent. As we begin this journey into the Christmas season, Hope is at our side. As we wend towards the end of 2021, sometimes with tremulous steps, Hope is under our arm, supporting us. Even the merest mustard seed of faith that things will get better and that God will show us the way lends strength and power to Hope. Hope is in a hand outstretched to help, in celebrating a hard task done, and even in the quickest of kind notes and gentle acknowledgements from our dear ones. Hope is in the bringing-together words of “Me, too. You aren’t alone.” 

Hope is what holds us aloft and all together. Hope in life, hope in God and His love, hope in His light. As the first Advent candle glows, may we find hope in its flame and in the Word it prepares us for.

Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Advent 2020 ~ The Flicker of Hope’s Flame

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2020 has barreled its way through our lives like so much of a stampede, seeming to batter and crush anything in its way. Our days have often been swathed in worry, upheaval, pain, and grief. We have spent this year living in the space between breaths.

We acknowledge the losses, the pain, the change, the struggles, and the sadness of this year. We take 2020 to heart because it has affected every corner of our lives.

But there is something else that we take to heart, Friends. In all of the struggle, in all of the hard, we take Hope to heart. We grasp the Hope that we now celebrate today. We grasp the Hope of Jesus’ Coming. We grasp the Hope furnished by His birth, His life, His death, and His rising again. We take to heart the Hope that is grown and nourished by His Love, His Joy, and His Peace.

We can take that Hope to our heart and soul. There may not be much or anything that we can do on a large scale to stem the tide of struggle seemingly inherent within this year, but we can do our best to live in Hope. We can do our best to live in Peace. We can love, hold, do good unto, and care for others, for those who surround us. We can forgive. We can give grace instead of sinking into bitterness and despair.

We can hold on to Hope.

You Have Not Been Deserted

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Today, teachers who needed to were allowed back into our building–one at a time, of course–to pick up anything we might need for the remainder of the school year and/or summer, just in case. My time slot was 11:30, with another teacher due to arrive at 11:45. I did not take my phone with me, as I wanted to make sure that I was in and out quick-sticks as instructed. But, Dear Ones, it was WEIRD!

Weird to walk into that building that I am so used to being bustling with life. Weird to see the empty halls, the quiet classrooms. Weird to see the lockers that had been covered with hearts and post-it notes so far this semester, expressions of love and encouragement from student to student, now stripped clean out of an abundance of caution. Of the four that were once there, one lone post-it note remained on my classroom door. One that admonished: “Make yourself a priority.” (I tell you, the student who wrote it could not have known that they wrote it for just such a time as this. But that is a whole other blog post.)

It was eerie, empty, and all I could feel was a sense of…desertion. We had deserted these halls, deserted this routine, deserted this normal, and it felt utterly weird. And sad, too, in a way. For roughly 13 years of their lives, students get up and go to school for 7-8 hours a day at least, 180 days out of the school year. For the school to be deserted on the first day of April just felt…wrong. I know many of my students feel that wrongness and, yes, maybe even desertion right now. I think that is where we all are at the moment: feeling that wrongness, that disruption, and, yes, in some sense, that feeling of desertion, of either deserting or being deserted by our lives. We are in the midst of something huge right now, Dear Ones, something without defined borders or dimensions. We have been deserted by all certainty except the most dire in this time, and that is unspeakably hard.

As I bustled about my classroom, gathering what I needed, I spied projects that my students had done that had not been picked up before we had closed, and I smiled. I smiled at their imagination and hard work. These were projects that I had comandeered the downstairs display case to show off during fall semester, as they were done during first quarter. I was and still am supremely proud of those students and their creativity and ingenuity.

That feeling of desertion may be hanging heavy, but there are still smiles to be had. There are still opportunities for ingenuity and creativity. Things have changed, yes; been upheaved, yes; been turned right on their ear, yes. But we have not been deserted. I can assure you of that, Dear Ones. You have not been deserted and nor have you deserted anyone.

I know you. I know that you are being massively kind and caring, shouldering not only your burdens but also those of your partners, children, family, friends, and neighbors. You have taken their cares and well-being onto your minds and souls.

You have put bears in your windows for children to find.

You have strewn your porches with balloons and filled your windowpanes with encouraging messages.

You have sent out hope in emails, Facebook messages, Instagram DMs, and messages of handwritten love.

You have not been deserted and nor have you deserted anyone. We are all still right here. Separate but still together.

When I came home from my trip to the school building, I got on our digital learning platform and started grading assignments that have been turned in. And I smiled again. I got to read wonderful, insightful posts by students about oral tradition and how it translates into our digital age. I got to see others’ creativity in translating and interpreting proverbs from Poor Richard’s Almanac.

We will all have stories to tell when this is over and it makes me smile to teach my students just where their stories fit in to the larger one of life.

You have not been deserted and nor have you deserted anyone, Dear Ones. There are still smiles to give and receive, love to be found in the every day, hope that will crop up in the quiet moments. Peace is still there to be found in what cannot be stopped by crisis or circumstance: sunrises and sunsets, the quiet of early morning and the settling of life in the evening, and the eventual changing of the seasons (did anyone else totally miss that the grass has become green again?).

We have not been deserted. There are still smiles, love, compassion, peace, and hope to be found in the midst of all this, and we can still find each other.

Words Upon Words

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January 14, 2019 – Hope*Writers Prompts

 I love words. I think you have figured that out about me by now. But there is something that I deeply dislike: saying words without a point. I don’t like babbling, and I feel exceedingly embarrassed when I think I am babbling pointlessly. I don’t think that I have ever wanted to be famous for my words, but I do know–or rather, have come to realize–that I want my words to mean something. I want them to be meaningful to someone in some way for some reason, whether that reason is encouragement, an inspiration to be and/or make the world around them better, to see others in a dearer light, or to extend that dear light to themselves. All I know that I am desperate for my words to mean Something.

Josephine March is my favorite novel character, and, inLittle Women, Jo longed for a life beyond her beloved Orchard House, a life that was astonishing. I am not reaching for astonishing, honestly. I am not entirely sure I could handle astonishing. I am not reaching for the book deals, the speaking engagements, etc., though I dearly do love rejoicing in and with those who have flown to those amazing, inspiring heights. I just have this craving, deep down in the belly of my soul, for what I write and say to have meaning, to fall on hearts and minds and sink in somehow for the better.

Holding On

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My Dearest Dears,

December has dawned in darkness and pain and grief. I have honestly avoided writing on all of this darkness because, well, it’s everywhere. Everyone is writing about it and good points have already been made. Outlining and highlighting the darkness is not my job. It is there, undeniable. It is truth, the starkest, coldest truth for some people, and what may be their only truth this Christmas. The statistics are there, etched and grooved in their own stoney reality. More shootings than there are days in the year. Families torn asunder on what was supposed to be a fun night out. A quiet dinner interrupted by a hail of gunfire and shrapnel. No, no one needs me to delve deeper into the darkness.

What is my job, though, is get out of the way of the light. No, I am not suggesting that we silver line these people’s pain. No. Never. I have never experienced such utter, violent loss. I have no frame of knowledge from which to speak to their pain. But I can acknowledge it and I do, with all my heart. I acknowledge their loss, their pain, their grief, their anger, their sadness, and join it in with them. I do not know these people, any of them here or abroad, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot take their grief as much to heart as I would those close to me.

But there is something else that I take to heart along with that grief. Something that I have noticed in so much of the aftermath of these events: the voices that come out of them. The voices of those who suffer this grief and loss. Their voices that call, beg, plead for peace. Their voices that admonish us to love, hold, do good unto, and care for others. Their voices that call for forgiveness. Their voices and lives that are the living proof that grace is a better choice than bitterness.

As we begin to close out this first week of Advent, this week of Hope, I am taking those voices to heart and soul. There may not be much or anything at all that I can do on a large scale, nor would I even know where to start, honestly, but I can do my best to do as they have asked. I can do my best to live in peace. I can love, hold, do good unto, and care for others. I can forgive. I can give grace instead of sinking into bitterness.

I can hold on to hope.