Hope

When did I first meet Hope? I was young… very young, and even then she seemed naïve. It was early morning and I awoke from my sleep in the back of our station wagon. It was time to say goodbye to my dad as he deployed. He’d be gone at least 6 months, though I had no concept of time. Hope tried to console me then I remember, but I did not know her. She was there, present the whole time, yet never the center of my attention.

That’s her way. She does not draw too much attention to herself. Hope always shows up on account of others, encouraging and supporting our love for them for their own sake. She does not make herself the center of attention, but is always there for you… in the background. It was years before I took any notice of her at all. There, years later, in a time of solitude and isolation she came into focus. And I recognized her! She had been there all along, faithfully by my side. And it was then that I came to love her.

How patient she had been, waiting for me to recognize her! And now in our union, she has produced Patience for me in my own heart. There’s no denying it, Patience is more like her mother. Soft, quiet, content just to be herself. And yet, there’s something stronger in her than I had in my own youth. She’s still young, but she’s growing.

It’s a funny thing when a father has to learn from his child. He’s been too thick headed to learn in his own childhood, so he must learn vicariously from the childhood of another. And Patience is teaching me so much! One thing that’s struck me is her indifference to time. It holds no authority over her. It has a strange hold on me as an adult, but not over her.

Even as she longs for a thing, she does not want it in her own time. Rather, she wishes to have it in its own timing, knowing that the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. In this way she has taught me the value of receiving a thing and not just taking it for myself. In the receiving of a gift, I gain the thing itself, but I also gain a point of connection and relation to the giver. Patience is teaching me that. It is a lesson her mother has been trying to teach me all along.

*Accompanying music for this post is January Wedding by the Avett Brothers. It can be found at the top right side of this post.
January Wedding, the Avett Brothers, I and Love and You

Waiting

I love gardening. And this time of the year is full of waiting! Waiting for the seedlings to grow indoors, waiting for the last frost date, waiting for rain… then getting overwhelmed with the rain and waiting for sunshine and blue skies. Waiting is in every step of the gardening process. It’s exciting and full of anticipation at times and then frustrating and infuriating at others, but there it remains… waiting all along.

Why do I do it? Why wait? Why garden at all? Wouldn’t life be much easier (and free of the burden of waiting) if I just didn’t care? Aaaah, there it is. I wait because I care, there is something in the gardening that I find valuable and worth pursuing. There is life in it for me, in cultivating the life of these plants. And not just life in the food produced, but in the entire process of gardening itself.

Ok, I care. And because I care, I pursue something worth while (here, it is gardening). And in that pursuit I must wrestle with the tension between things as they are now and my vision for what they can become. It’s risky to pursue a thing… it may not come to fruition. Of course, it’s risky to not pursue a thing too… then nothing will come to fruition. So I must befriend and learn from that virtue, Hope. The process of waiting is a process of cultivating a relationship with Hope, and learning to rest in and draw from her in times of despair. Because in the wilderness of waiting there are wolves prowling.

Fear will show up, you can count on that! Doubt too, and anxiety. These three cousins prowl about together in the wilderness of waiting, seeking whom they may devour. Anytime you care, anytime you pursue a thing of value and are in the wilderness of waiting for it, these three will show up. And it is in these times of despair that we must learn to rest in and rely on Hope! She is the light of Eärendil, that beloved star.

Perhaps that’s why I love gardening… in the times of waiting it cultivates a relationship with Hope that I desperately need. A relationship that I’ll be able to trust when the dark times in life come. When I’m tempted to abandon all to fear, doubt and anxiety, to give up caring at all. When I’m tempted to befriend more dubious characters just to avoid the loneliness in times of waiting… then I’ll know that I can rest in Hope. And through her, also gain the company of faith and love.

*Accompanying music for this post is Connie’s Song, by Xavier Rudd. Check it out at the top right side of this post.
Connie’s Song, Xavier Rudd, Food in the Belly

A Season of Life

It’s now springtime and the season of dormancy and death is losing its strength. Even as temperatures oscillate and the winds bring sleet one day and thunderstorms the next; that promise of life, hope, and joy is too potent for winter to reign in now! It’s in the air, you can smell it. Life! The birds sense it and sing. The trees feel its presence and begin to venture out of their hiding.

Interestingly, it is the smaller trees that come out first. The redbud and dogwood trees which are boldest, along with the pear. But then their older brothers and sisters are encouraged by the boldness of their siblings and life burgeons forth with increasing determination. Next the cherry, birch, and maple leaf out; followed by the ash, hickory, and mighty oak. That life within is called forth and drawn out by the loving gaze of the sun. And it is the affectionate stare of the sun that stirs that life within and calls each tree forward to be fully itself. And not the trees only, but all matter of life on earth rises into itself in spring. Called forward by the sun, it obediently and joyfully manifests itself without a second glance back at the sorrows of winter left behind.

Only we humans hold onto the past and are burdened by fears of the future. It is we who are gifted and burdened with an understanding of time. And as such, we are the most hesitant and fearful of all. It is we humans who resist the call forward, who withhold ourselves and linger in a mindset of winter long past its time. And it’s not like we don’t have reason. With knowledge of things past and prediction of things to come, there’s much to be cautious about. But why should we give such things the power to steel away the hope, life, and joy which calls to us today? Why give our ear to the voice of worries and fears when Joy Himself is speaking to us? Let us be taken by the gaze of the sun and obey His call out of winter.

*Accompanying music for this post is Power of the Gospel, by Ben Harper. Find it at the top right side of this post to listen.
Power of the Gospel, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Live from Mars

A Prayer for My Grandmother

I received news a number of days ago that my grandmother is in hospice care. She hasn’t eaten for a number of days, and is expected to die soon. My parents went to visit her, to presumably see her for the last time. My mom then went back again. My mom is struggling, and has asked that we pray for my grandmother.

And so, this is my prayer:

She is in pain. Or perhaps it is that she feels the abatement of life. Like what you feel at the start of a sickness. You don’t exactly feel pain but don’t feel fully alive either, and only wish to stay in bed to avoid the pain of movement and responsibilities. And at these times you long for strength, for energy, for the sense of life and health that motivates you to make the most of the day, and take pleasure in it. This isn’t pain exactly, but it’s not life either. It’s more like the way Bilbo Baggins described his feeling in old age… “thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
Undoubtedly it’s both. She probably is feeling pain(s), severe pains… and she is feeling the receding of life. She is suffering, both from pain and a longing for the fullness of life she once experienced and knows exists. God, have mercy. Meet her here in this place where physical pain(s) and the fading of life dominate. Care for her, draw her into Yourself.
Be merciful. She has sought to honor you. She is not perfect, and You (not I) know the ways she has deviated from You in her life expressions. Yet Your mark on her has been evident. In receiving and following direction from Your spirit her life has told Your story. She has rested in You. Be with her now in her time of need.
Give her peace. Not the kind of peace that comes from giving up hope, in order to avoid the pains of longing anymore. Not the peace of emptiness or nothingness, where one gives up the longing and the self along with it. But the peace of fullness and wholeness, of life itself. That fullness of life which she has longed for all her life, but has not been able to grasp. That fullness of life that can only be accepted and received, and not obtained or earned. That fullness of life that takes us into itself, and simultaneously comes in to us. That fullness of life that sustains and strengthens the self even as one surrenders that self to it. Give her that peace.
As she surrenders herself to You for the last time now, sustain and strengthen that self which you have given her. Take her into Yourself, and simultaneously fill her with Yourself… so that she may experience that fullness of life which she has all this time longed for and missed. It is You.

*Accompanying music for this post is O Love That Will Not Let Me Go, by Indelible Grace. Find it at the top right hand side of this post to listen.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go, Indelible Grace, Side B