Trying to Stay Present to Hope
A messy water bowl to a surprise gift this morning
Looking back at the different reflections of hope this week, I am grateful for what I have seen in the world around me - in nature, in art, in people, in words, in the ordinary, and in the extraordinary. I started the week in our worship service by sharing a reflection upon the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah and finding the balance of hope with the challenges of life and I ended it today by finding a crazy gift of hope on a trail with Scout.
Cynthia Borgeault wrote this about hope:
Hope’s home is at the innermost point in us, and in all things. It is a quality of aliveness. It does not come at the end, as the feeling that results from a happy outcome. Rather, it lies at the beginning, as a pulse of truth that sends us forth. When our innermost being is attuned to this pulse it will send us forth in hope, regardless of the physical circumstances of our lives. Hope fills us with the strength to stay present, to abide in the flow of the Mercy no matter what outer storms assail us. It is entered always and only through surrender; that is, through the willingness to let go of everything we are presently clinging to. And yet when we enter it, it enters us and fills us with its own life—a quiet strength beyond anything we have ever known.1
I love the way that quote ends - when we enter hope, hope enters us, and fills us with its own life - a quiet strength beyond anything we’ve ever known. Hope is amazing in that this seemingly small thing can keep in balance against all that life has to throw at us. So, looking back on hope this week (daily posts are linked with each):
Sunday - a messy bowl containing the dissolved paper notes that our congregation was longing to find hope in the midst of.
Monday - Words from two amazing women pointing to hope
Tuesday - Brushstrokes of Jesus from a gifted artist whose life our congregation celebrated that morning as we proclaimed our hope in the resurrection.
Wednesday - a transcendent moment along a well walked path and seeing infinity to my right and rocks in the sky.
Thursday - Two moments. First a song that was shared in a substack post about the horrific situation in Gaza. It is a beautiful song crafted by a Jewish woman centering on the words of Jeremiah 29:11…seeking a future with hope.
And then a moment as my oldest drove as we headed back home from picking him up from college - a slowly receding sunset with a contrail of a plane looking like a comet crossing the sky.
Today...Scout and I went on our hike this morning and I expected to see hope in what I thought would be a beautiful sunrise (which it was)
As I walked, I was praying for one of our congregants who just had a significant surgery for cancer on Thursday and I was also a bit cranky about something from earlier in the day. But I was trying to pray nonetheless. And then I saw this little box wedged into a crack in a stump on the side of the path.
I stopped to look and had to read the message on the top a few times to really believe what I was seeing. Yes, a little box with a gift and a message about hope. Here’s what was inside.
I have no idea who “The woman of the woods” is and have no idea where these beads come from. But wow. Finding this randomly at the end of a week trying to stay present to hope. And as I wrote this, I had a conversation with someone to whom I am going to give this who needed a little bit of hope today.
Where or in what did you find hope this week?
Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God (Cowley Publications: 2001), 20–21, 25, 34, 86–87.
WOW. That plastic box. That note. I'm in good hope.