A Good Day to Hope

My kids asked me to tell them the story of Lord of the Rings during one of those classic family road trips a few summers back. I told them I would, but that they needed to know ahead of time that things in the story would get really dark-- as dark as they could look-- before they started getting better-- and that the "better" would be so much more better, because the darkness got all that dark. I wanted to prepare their young hearts for the knife-edge of hope that the story teeters on.

I've been thinking a lot about hope these days. And it strikes me that today is a good day for hope. The darkness has a different name than "Mordor", but there's a lot of it: "economic downturns," "failed peace talks," "global climate change"- things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. It's hard to imagine the darkness thickening more from here. And darkness hits home, too--my heart has a lot of "why?"s and "why not?"'s and "what if?"'s these days for lots of people I love deeply.

Yeah, it's a good day to hope.

I'm also presenting my final research project for my M.Div program today. After 5 years, 96 credits, approx. 1200 pages of writing, I'm giving my final elaborate book-report on "What have I learned about being a pastor?"

It was a good day to hope the day we arrived in Caronport Saskatchewan, 5 years ago, too. I remember that summer as very hot, very stressful, and very full of eager anticipation. Stare intently as I dared into the horizon and all I could see was a haze of fascinating books to read, deep questions to ask, theological quandries to hammer out. And God and God's people to meet, and re-meet, and re-meet again.

I was reading the collected works of e.e. cummings that summer, and I read this poem that put my heart into words for me. A kind of flesh-made-word experience that helped me speak my hope. It stuck with me so deeply that I set it to music a few months later (you can click on the icon below to hear my musical interpretation of the poem).

The Apostle Paul says: Hope that is seen is no hope at all. And he's right. Sometimes things have to get as dark as they can look before they get better. But thanks be to God that once in a while, in the communion of his people, in the touch of his Spirit, in the spontaneous thankfulness for life that His grace grants us-- once in a while-- we can taste hope.

i thank You God for most this amazing

e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears are awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)