“Hope can be found in the strangest places.
In my town, we have a compost-collection program where you can save your household food scraps and drop them off into communal bins at parks in different neighborhoods.
The first time I went to drop off my smelly bag of potato peelings, apple cores and broccoli
stems, I wondered if anybody else would ever go to the trouble. But even as I walked up to the bin, a man was approaching to do the same thing.
Cool, I thought. I'm not the only one.
A week later, when I was joining a friend for a morning walk, I told her I first needed to drop off my compost gunk at the park. Fine. I'll bring mine as well, she said.
Whoa! Another participant!
Most of the time the bins are positively overflowing. It is disgusting. One could argue this means the town needs to empty it more often. (Probably true.) But the flip side is that I find hope here. I find hope because there are a lot of people out there who care. They care about landfills and nature and waste --and organic materials that, handled properly, can replenish gardens and farms. They care about the Earth that God gave us.
I find hope in many things-- a baby's smile, a full moon, a bracing hymn, a plan for what comes next--but I really find it in people who care. So, when I look at that oozing, rotting, putrid communal bin of egg shells, brown banana peels, onion skins, soggy Cheerios, and chicken bones, I see hope.
We won’t find hope unless we look for it.
