March 2014 (Vol. XXVII, No. 3)
Beneath yet another blanket of gently falling snow, I find myself pondering the warming glow of hope. Endless gray days, dying yearling deer, and seemingly lifeless forest encroach upon my heart. I know that spring will come, with its joyful melodies and vibrant hues and teeming life. Likewise that winter holds its own still beauty, paring down the landscape so we can see its silhouettes more clearly. Yet at times our world seems too far cast in winter's thrall to be able to remember and envision its renewal. How does one hold on to hope amid the chill of our inhumanities and senseless overpowering of the earth? From whence does hope come? How can we cradle our hands around it to protect it from the snuffing winds and cynical voices? To choose hope is to tap into the memory of faithfulness and to wait with gratitude for seeds of possibility hidden beneath the snow.
To one who waits all things reveal themselves, so long as you have the courage not to deny in the darkness what you have seen in the Light.
~ Coventry Patmore
Hope is the foundation or beginning step of faith and an essential expression of love. It provides the formless general aspiration for that which is higher and better, and then faith fills out the picture with the specific shape that a better self or a better world would take. As the expression of love, it sends that image out to the loved one and to the universe. By hoping you are taking an active part in the process by which the present creates the future.
- from THE POWER OF HOPE by Robert Ellwood
One Breath
Here, in the silence And stillness between I find myself offering A small breath of hope For the world.
~ Casey Sayre Boukus
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
~ George Iles
Hope is a human act of commitment to and investment in the future. Hope is an act of human courage that refuses to cherish the present too much or be reduced to despair by present circumstance. Hope is the capacity to relinquish the present for the sake of what is imagined to be a reachable future...
Sureness about God's large resolve...is a summons...Now is the time for yielding justice, for foolish forgiveness, for outrageous generosity, for elaborate hospitality. None of these acts can come from fear, anxiety, or despair. But they are all acts that evoke new futures that the fearful think are impossible. Hope in the end is a contradiction of the dominant version of reality...it is at the root of human well-being, for ourselves as for all our would-be neighbors.
~ Walter Brueggemann in Sojourners Magazine, Dec 2013
I see in [these] folks the human capacity for change, for redemption, for forgiveness. I believe that every one of us, made in God's image as we are, has that capacity. Our challenge is to learn to call it forth in each person. Our hope is that we will succeed.
~ Shelley Douglass in Sojourners Magazine, Dec 2013
How shall the mighty river reach the tiny seed? See it rise silently to the sun's yearning, sail from a winter's cloud flake after silent flake piling up layer upon layer until the thaw of spring to meet the seedling's need.
Make tender, Lord, my heart: release through gentleness Thine own tremendous power hid in the snowflake's art.
~ Antoinette Adam
Above all, hope is based on relationships, on a collaborative connection with people as well as a higher power.
~ Louise Danielle Palmer
There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
~ Barry Lopez in ARCTIC DREAMS
Suddenly an influx of light, though it was late, filled my room. I looked out and saw that the pond was already calm and full of hope as on a summer evening, though the ice was dissolved but yesterday. There seemed to be some intelligence in the pond which responded to the unseen serenity in a distant horizon.
~ Thoreau
Look deeply into your life. Search out the hidden things within your circumstances. The beauty is there. Comfort and forgiveness are available. Hope is always waiting for you to find.
~ from William Martin in THE SAGE'S TAO TE CHING
Dusty cobblestones glow in the darkness I walk out thinking the moon is illuminating them but the sky is only pinkness A city engulfed in its own smog and light Red sky prophesies say this is the end of days A lone frog singing says the days will last Outside I am overcome Inside I am too big for my own cage Shining intensity at my own smog It glows too brightly to see the moon or stars beyond I wait for a shift For things to end Or for a miracle that will come and clean everything Like the rain the frog is calling
~ Caitlin Chero
Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay.
~ Maya Angelou
Wild winter winds depart in a final, dying howl. Blackbird returns, a red-winged oracle of spring, announcing new life and renewed light, shimmering with possibilities of ever-circling Hope.
~ from "Red-Winged Blackbird" in POEMS OF OTHER WORLDS by Richard Bachtold
The Friends of Silence Retreat Ministry
We invite you to a retreat in the beautiful wilderness setting of Still Point Mountain Retreat and Rolling Ridge Study Retreat this year. For a complete listing and more information, please see friendsofsilence.net, email lindsay@rollingridge.net, call 304-724-1069, or write Friends of Silence Retreat Ministry, c/o Lindsay McLaughlin, 120 Jubilee Lane, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425.
See the website events for other opportunities for shared fellowship and work, and a warm welcome to schedule private individual/group retreats.
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