perspective

Remember building the best fort ever?

And then how the dog charged through the living room and across the pillow and how the blanket slid out from the stack of books holding it down, and how the whole thing fell apart, but also how this broken down mess was what got you outside, out to that wide field where you found some jacked-up old wood and a random shoe, and then how you found yourself starting again, building something altogether new.

How you sat there with dirt under your finger nails, digging away.

And how the sun was setting and you looked up to see a new view emerging from across the wide field and over the lake.

A world that was waiting for you, but which you wouldn’t have seen if the dog hadn’t charged through the living room.

- Sabrina Ward Harrison

I thought about this little story tonight as a group of us talked at home community. It's such a quick story but the message to me is massive and hopeful. Things in life may not turn out exactly how I plan or hope but often times what comes after the collapse of one plan is something new and beautiful and different and good. I hope I always have the eyes to see that new view and the goodness that can be born out of loss.

little bits

i saw an old man on the street corner yesterday blowing great big bubbles from his bike just as it started to rain and it made me so happy.

lovin' the song, 'your hand in mine' by explosions in the sky. the couple who's wedding i helped shoot this past week in zihuatanejo, walked down the aisle to this song. it's so pretty.

also lovin' the song, 'never let me go' off the new florence + the machine album. btw, this album is so great.

i want a dog more and more. while i was in mexico. on our beach stroll, this street dog just walked with us down the beach and back and then sat under our feet as we stopped for a beer-that cost one whole dollar (ohsogreat). reminds me of my beach walks as a little girl on the island. by the time i got to the end of the beach there'd be seven dogs by my side that joined me along the way. i just love 'em.

painful experiences are awful and i wouldn't wish suffering on anyone, but nothing connects people the way pain does, and i find that to be one of the most beautiful things. the redemption, if we have the eyes and privelege to see it is amazing and breathtaking, makes me heartfull and thankful and ultimately more faithful.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

and lastly, love this quote.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
-Emerson

quote.

"Charles Dickens tells us every heart is a profound mystery to the heart beating nearest it." Don Miller

and if you're curious of the original quote like I was...

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!" - Charles Dickens

just marinating on this little gem today.

hot potato

Sometimes an emotion will hit me upside the head, just right out of left field. After all this talk about sitting with pain and working through it. I definitely have those days in which I do that very thing and it's hard but it's also good. Then I have other days like today where it's like I'm playing that hot potato game, where you throw the potato around to others as fast as you can and you lose if you hang onto it too long, only it's my emotions that I'm tossing around. Throwing it right back before I even have the chance to be with it for even a moment. All I know is its discomfort, and the logical thing in the moment is to throw it right back before it has the chance to burn me.

I find myself thinking back to one of the first sermons I heard at Imago dei Community and the voice of a 92 year old woman saying the words, "hang on and hang in". You can listen to the sermon here.

I want to know

if you have touched

the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened

by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know

if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

(from The Invitation)

the long way around

I woke up this morning earlier than anticipated. I tried to curl back into sleep for rest’s sake but my stubborn mind wouldn’t rest. I stayed nestled in my bed (which continues to be the warmest place in the house since we as a house have refused to turn on the heat) and turned on some music. I found myself reflecting on life and faith and reading old journal entries. I sighed as I remembered so many moments just like this a couple years ago, I call it “cocooning”.

Cocooning was that time I gave myself to just be still and give myself the space to process and grow and the cozier and safer that space was the better. I had just bought this book, When the Heart Waits randomly on a sale table at Powell’s Books purely because she was the writer of my favorite book, The Secret Life of Bees. In this spiritual memoir of sorts she writes about butterflies and cocoons and waiting. I took in her words like a desert to rain. I related with so much of what she had to say but especially to the cocoon. For a time, she recalls being inundated with images of butterflies and cocoons. One instance, she recalls a poster of a butterfly against a great big sky, on it were the words “Your soul is your greatest work of art” and right down in the corner is the husk of an empty cocoon. A painful reminder that bright wings and works of art don’t just happen, they require courage and letting go and a time of becoming. I think the most fascinating thing about cocoons is that on the outside it looks as if nothing is happening and it looks like the caterpillar inside is hiding, but on the inside, change and transformation are taking place. The butterfly is becoming. The cocoon isn’t an escape but a transformation place.

It got me thinking about this season of life that was so painful. There were ways to escape pain sure, but I was making an intentional decision to face it and sit with it. Funny how easy that sentence was to type out but so incredibly difficult to actually do. I think it’s a natural desire to run from pain, to numb out or pretend it’s not there. It’s so easy to want to arrive, to be at a point where it doesn’t hurt anymore, where everything is perfect and just so. I had spent most of my life thinking if I don’t look at my pain then all would be well. Sure, it worked for a while but you know what? I still knew it was there and my fear of it just grew. When dealing with our wounds, it takes time.

“We went onto heaven the long way around.” -Henry David Thoreau

I love this quote, so much.

Makes me think of something I find myself saying often. The most rewarding things in life take time to build and grow. Most people want heaven now, like every other pleasure in life, instant happiness. Taking the long way isn’t seen as desirable but I would argue that it’s the only way to truly live. It’s long and arduous and oftentimes painful, but there is so much more wisdom to gain and grace to receive along the way. Every day I wake up and commit to taking the long way and I think my soul will be all the better for it.

a woman of strength and softness

a friend of mine shared this poem with me when i was in malawi a few years ago. i scribbled it down in my journal then only to reread it this week. i think it's so beautiful and had to share it.

A Woman of Strength and Softness

Surrendered heart, not surrendered identity

a strength to be reckoned with

She does not demand respect

but you want to give it to her

Her presence invites you to rest

in fact she is like a tree

holding forth nurturing branches

not a spiderweb, trapping you for her soul food

Her vulnerability is so lovely

you cannot keep your soul out of hers

She is marked by genuine kindness

of one who has already forgiven you

for how you will fail her

She exudes the kind of strength

that trusts and waits and suffers

as unto God's purposes, not her own

She lays her own life down

like a lamb, not a dog

Her surrender flows from her love

not fear or desperation

Her surrender is a chosen thing

She lives in the vulnerability of her longing to be treasured

her longing to be known

her longing to be invited in

But she lets her disillusionment

tenderize, not toughen her heart

She does not hold the objects of her love captive

She does not make them pay

or tie them to her with guilt

or keep them in terror of her critical eye

But rather lets them fly free

Enjoying all the more the reunion

They get to choose to be with her

She lives at the mercy of no one

She is captive only to the Father

Thus she is free to love

Even if it means she loses

She chooses doing love over getting love.

Written by Lottie K. Hillard

The Impossible Dream

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the un-rightable wrong

To be better far than you are

To try when your arms are too weary

The reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star

No matter how hopeless,

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into hell

For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will be peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world would be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star

I was sitting in a coffee shop editing wedding photos and listening to Pandora this morning. Patty Griffin’s sweet and soulful voice was singing “top of the world” and at the song’s end came silence and then she continued on with “to dream the impossible dream”…

I felt my heart tug and I stopped, wondering why those words struck me so. Then I remembered that it was one of the songs that my Grandma would sing, just out of the blue or sometimes she would sing it to me over a voicemail on my birthday. It’s been a song that has woven itself into our relationship all these years. I’ve been hearing her sing those words since I was just a little girl. I don’t think I’ll hear her sing them again in this life. Dementia has taken her captive and she can scarcely remember anyone in our family. As I listened to those words, I’m taken back to a few years ago when I was visiting her in the nursing home and she kept telling me every other sentence how proud she was of me and how she loved me “to the max”. She was her sweet self, so full of joy and kindness. I took a bunch of hold-out pictures of us that day and we laughed and laughed at our own silliness. Then she walked over to the piano and played Impossible Dream and sang for me and it was so beautiful. I didn’t realize what a gift that day was. That was the last visit I had with the Grandma that I knew all these years. She’s different now and the disease has laid claim over her mind and body, but I am so glad I have that sweet day to remember her by.

I am a lyrics girl when it comes to music, so I was surprised that I had never really thought about the words to this song. Now, as I sit here reading the lyrics, I love the song even more. What a great life anthem; I may need to adopt this one as my own.

May we all dream the impossible dream.

quotage

"We are undefinable. We are shades of masculine and feminine looking for someone to bounce life off of, looking for someone to give when we need to receive, to receive when we need to give, and when it's done right both get done at the same time. Being to being, here let me hold that soul for you because you've been... drowning in labels for so long you've grown tired of survival. Here is a moment of bliss, a moment of aliveness. All day long I expend. I hold together, I lift up, I give out, and sometimes... I just take in." ~ Lauren Zuniga

I will not wait to love as best I can

"I will not wait to love as best I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is not a way to live, to wait to love." - David Eggers

I read this quote a while back and remember being taken aback like I had been smacked upside the head but was in a rush so I just jotted it on a piece of paper and shoved into a journal to remember to look at and reflect on later…then I forgot about it, until just recently when I decided I felt like writing again and found it in an old journal I hadn’t written in for ages. I unfolded the edges and read it again. And there it was again, that same smack upside the head.

I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to random things like writing papers and baking cookies. They always needed a little something extra; they were never quite right. The biggie of the bunch was love. To be able to love, I always thought, I needed a lot of work and I did and still do. I kept the thought in my head that if I can just fix this bad trait or this lack of trust or my fears, if I could just get my act together-then maybe I could love someone or someone could love me. If everything could be just so then…it could be great. The problem is, everything will never be just so. If everyone thought this way, nobody would ever love anybody. It would be a world without love, which is the saddest of all thoughts. Sure we may be not be the best at loving people, but it’s a process. All the great things in this life are a process; it’s like taking the long road, getting lost along the way but seeing so much more beauty in the meantime.

Recently, life and the circumstance at hand have me marinating on this whole idea of waiting to love. The thought I’ve kept coming back to over these past few weeks is that faith and love are a choice. We wake up every day and choose to love this person and this God. We arrange our lives in a way that will support them and grow those relationships. We strive to better them. But in the end, we’re human and flawed and we mess up and we make mistakes and we don’t love well. And in those moments, thank goodness for grace and forgiveness. We soak and sit in that grace. I love how Anne LaMott puts it, "I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us." We grow and learn and we wake up to another day and we try again, to love fully and well. It's a process we learn to embrace and fall into the rhythm of. We will never love perfectly, not even in the future. But we can love the best we can, knowing that we are imperfect and it will be ridiculously tough at times. We can acknowledge it for the process that is is, and we will be all the better for it in the end.

It is not a way to live, to wait to love.

trust

‎"how glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved." -b. manning

trust is one of those things in life that is so incredibly beautiful yet so impossible to quantify.

i hear it so often.

trust in the lord. trust me.

it's so easy to say and yet so hard to live.

it's so hard to trust when i can't see the road ahead.

it's so hard to trust when i don't know if the reward will outweigh the risk.

it's so hard to trust when i fear my heart will get broken.

yet,

somehow, in spite of the risk and the unknown

i choose to trust.

trust my intuition

trust that still small voice

trust that i am loved,

so dearly loved.

on love

"When you're in love, you can't stop smiling, yet you can't smile enough."

-My Aunt Cathy

On Saturday, my cousin Brian got married to Jennifer, the love of his life. I couldn't be happier for the two of them and their new life together. Brian is a smiley guy to begin with but he was just beaming and giddy all day.

In the car as we were driving back to the ferry, we were reflecting on the day and talking about how happy B was and my aunt out of nowhere and so nonchalantly rattles off this beautiful but true string of words. "When you're in love, you can't stop smiling, yet you can't smile enough."

I just like that, a lot.

perspective. perfectly so.

I was at work the other day, doing what i do, making coffee and joking around with the friendly faces I have come to love like family, when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a little spider. I think I let out a little "eep" as it descended from the lamp right in front of my eyes. He was out of the way enough that I wouldn't touch him while serving customers and he didn't (to my knowledge) have the gusto to swing onto someone's date bar.

I kept glancing at him here and there to see what he was up to, and all I saw was him climbing up and then climbing down, walking over here and walking over there.

When the line ended and people had continued about their days, I leaned in close to the little guy and when I looked at a certain angle in a certain light, I caught a glimpse of a beautifully constructed web. Wow. I took a moment to be humbled and acknowledge the fact that in that past hour, I had served a few people some caffeine and some smiles while this little guy had been slaving away over a home and what a beautiful whimsical creation he made. I took in the moment, feeling like this little spider had taught me something, but I wasn't quite sure what.

There was so much going on. I was distracted. Even when I glanced at the spider, all I saw was the spider, not the incredible web around it. Spider webs are funny like that. Life is funny like that. The light had to shine just right for me to see it. But man, in that light that lit up the web just perfectly so, I could see all the little intricate patterns that fit together perfectly. It was like a symphony.

I'd like to think that if I had the chance to see my life in that same light that shines just perfectly so, that I would feel that same feeling of awe at the beautifully orchestrated symphony that is our lives. If only. Since I don't have the luxury of that perspective right now, I've decided to just live as if I did. Because, I do believe God is at work in every little intricate detail and I would be in complete and total awe if I had the eyes to see it all.

verse

We don't yet see things clearly

We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist

But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright

We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us,

knowing him directly just as he knows us.

But for right now, until that completeness

We have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation;

Trust steadily in God

Hope unswervingly

Love extravagantly

And the best of the three is love.

I Corinthians 13:12-13

thankful, still.

"Thankfulness depends on what is in your heart, not what is in your hand."

I've been marinating on this quote all day. My friend Rachelle has it written on the signature of her emails and every time I read it I have to stop and let it sink into my bones. Thankfulness is a posture and an attitude that we control. It does not depend on what we physically hold. We can have everything and yet keep ungrateful hearts or we can have absolutely nothing and be thankful still.

I've been learning how to be grateful in this season of looking for jobs. I have gotten my hopes up countless times only to be let down easy. It is so hard to put myself out there again and again, hoping that this one may be the one that works out, only to be brought to my knees again wondering why it didn't work out, why it wasn't the right fit. And that's where I find myself again tonight. I had wanted this one job to work out. It was perfect and I wanted it so badly. I let myself hope for it. I don't like to hope for things, it's risky and puts much at stake. I can't turn it off though- I am wired to hope. After a couple weeks of hoping, it was a blow to find out I didn't get the job. It bummed me out; it was an accumulation of all the let downs. I had my teary drive to work this evening, a blubbery phone call to my parents and a general bummed out attitude. And here I am, stuck on it. I'll let myself be sad for the night but I won't let it get me down. I'll wake up tomorrow and put myself out there again and keep hoping because that's the kind of girl my parents raised me to be, and I'm all the better for it.

God has plans for me, I truly believe that. I don't believe it just happened to be the case that I was able to raise funds and get enough time off work to go to Haiti three times this past year- to help and serve, to use my giftings and strengths in a way that empowered and helped in the restoration and rebuilding of Haiti. That time was just what my heart needed and I don't think that's coincidence at all.

I'm just waiting to see how God unfolds this little life of mine in His good and perfect timing.
And in the waiting, I am thankful, still.

Hinds Feet on High Places

I've been reading this book, Hinds Feet on High Places for a few days now and just loving it. It's a beautiful allegory about spiritual journeys and highs and lows. Last night I opened it up where I had left off, a chapter on the desert. It's been so perfectly timed for this week and this season of life. Had to share it.

They stayed at the huts in the desert for several days, and Much-Afraid learned many things which she had never heard before.

One thing, however, made a special impression upon her. In all that great desert, there was not a single green thing growing, neither tree nor flower nor plant save here and there a patch of straggly grey cacti.

On the last morning she was walking near the tents and huts of the desert dwellers, when in a lonely corner behind a wall she came upon a little golden-yellow flower, growing all alone. An old pipe was connected with a water tank. In the pipe was a tiny hole through which came an occasional drop of water. Where the drops fell one by one, there grew the little golden flower, though where the seed had come from, Much-Afraid could not imagine, for there were no birds anywhere and no other growing things.

She stopped over the lonely, lovely little golden face, lifted up so hopefully and so bravely to the feeble drip, and cried out softly, "What is your name, little flower, for I never saw one like you before."

The tiny plant answered at once in a tone as golden as itself, "Behold me! My name is Acceptance-with-Joy.

'I come home'

My lovely roomie passed along this gem of a song and it's just so beautiful that I had to share it.

I love the lyrics too, so darn good and haunting too.

I've listened to it a ridiculous amount of times already.

I tried to post the video but it wouldn't load, so you can click the link below to watch it on youtube.

enjoy.

I Come Home- Catherine Feeny

I come home
And I find myself alone again
And I need your voice on the phone
To remind me of how brave I am
Cause I get scared at night and I lose my heart
I see faces in my window, I hear noises in the dark
I lose my mind between the front door and the car
But you cannot run from demons
They know just where you are

And I buy draperies to keep me in
Cause I fear my heart is beating on the outside of my skin
And anyone who wants to can look on in
They will find me in my solitude
Yeah, sometimes in my sin

Cause these walls ain’t thick enough to keep out the sound
Of the ghosts who dance outside my door
They feed upon the ground
They stepped on from the heavens
They reach up from the mud
Their eyes are empty
They are looking for blood

There was a lady, she lived next door
She ain’t living anywhere anymore
No, she died slowly and full of pain
And I never saw her face and I never learned her name
But she visits me on some days
She asks me where I come from
She asks me why I stay

But she knows that I get scared at night and I lose my heart
See faces in my window, I hear noises in the dark
And I lose my mind between the front door and the car
But you cannot run from demons
They know just where you are
They know just where you are

And I come home
And I need your voice on the phone
I need your voice on the phone
I need your voice on the phone
I need your voice

To love somebody - Ray LaMontagne and Damien Rice

Discovered this song as I was looking for songs to add to my playlist and oh. my. goodness. SO GOOD.

Two of my favorite artists singing a duet cover of the BeeGees, amazing.

I can't stop listening.

The Invitation

I love everything about this.

It doesn’t interest me

what you do for a living.

I want to know

what you ache for

and if you dare to dream

of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me

how old you are.

I want to know

if you will risk

looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me

what planets are

squaring your moon…

I want to know

if you have touched

the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened

by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know

if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know

if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations

of being human.

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear

the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know

if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me

who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me

where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know

what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know

if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like

the company you keep

in the empty moments.

By Oriah © The Invitation,

Earthquake in Japan

A huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake just hit Japan and tsunamis have followed. I just watched some footage of it ---> here on bbc news. I can't even believe it. My heart is breaking for all of those affected by the earthquake and tsunami. I can't imagine what that must be like to see your world literally drifting away from you faster than you can blink your eyes. Sigh. My heart goes out to them.

Mary Oliver

"And now I understand something so frightening &wonderful-

how the mind clings to the road it knows,

rushing through crossroads, sticking

like lint to the familiar."

— Mary Oliver (Blue Pastures)

I am LOVING Mary Oliver quotes these days. I haven't read any of her work but I am thinking that I need to because I resonate with so much of what she writes.

I am marinating on this little ditty this morning. My minds know the roads it know and sometimes goes places and entertains certain thoughts just like it was on auto pilot. Like she writes, it's a frightening and wonderful thought. There are roads that I want my mind to know on autopilot and other roads I would like to be shut down and made into green pastures.

I run and run as the rains come

I went for a run yesterday. Every couple of months I get a hankering for a good long run. Some potential financial stress and change on the horizon got my heart racing yesterday afternoon and in an effort to do as my body is programmed to do in a stress situation, in my own way I chose flight.

Interesting fact: In moments of stress or crisis, our bodies react. Our hearts race, our blood pressure goes up and there is that moment of panic. In this panic, we are programmed to either fight or flight as a way to release the adrenaline running through our bodies. Our culture has morphed this fight or flight release of adrenaline into a more sedentary, eat some chocolate, drink some wine and sleep it off mentality, or at least I have been known to take that route after a stressful day. However, this way of dealing with stress works against our bodies and we never have that release of adrenaline. It builds and builds until it manifests in other ways such as migraines or ulcers.

So, in an effort to solve this stressful moment with a more appropriate outlet, I ran. I got all my gear on only to walk out the door into the pouring rain. Why do I never look out the window before leaving the house? Oh well, I thought, I’m going anyway. I ran and ran, through the side ache, and the rain drops on my face. I ran to the park down the road and decided to swing on the swings, my favorite part of this particular running route. As I was swinging in the rain, I looked at the city or what I could see of it through the thick fog and I couldn’t help but think about the future. So much is unknown. I can make out an outline of this or that but it’s all fuzzy. There may be a lot that is unknown but there is so much that IS known and I was reminded of a Don Miller quote,

“We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax, and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word one for: LEAVE. Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”

Just some thoughts rolling around in my mind.

It is Valentine’s day and this hasn't been a Valentinesy post has it? I’ll end this post with some lyrics to one of my favorite songs by Mumford and Sons, which happens to start off with lyrics about running and rain. Full circle, eh? Eh?

And after the storm,

I run and run as the rains come

And I look up, I look up,

on my knees and out of luck,

I look up.

Night has always pushed up day

You must know life to see decay

But I won't rot, I won't rot

Not this mind and not this heart,

I won't rot.

And I took you by the hand

And we stood tall,

And remembered our own land,

What we lived for.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.

And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.

Get over your hill and see what you find there,

With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And now I cling to what I knew

I saw exactly what was true

But oh no more.

That's why I hold,

That's why I hold with all I have.

That's why I hold.

Happy Valentine's Day

Much love.

Living With Hope

Some words from Henri Nouwen...

Living with Hope

Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that things-the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on-will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God's promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.

All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like. Let's live with hope.