Author: katecafehope

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

When I was in high school we had an exchange student from Japan who was amazed at the open spaces of northern Oklahoma, at that time still populated by large swaths of farmland. When we moved to Montana, known as “Big Sky Country,” I was amazed at how vast that expanse of sky is, a seamless canvas stretching in every direction. Before I was quite oriented to that sense of space, a church member commented that he had been to Tennessee and it was quite beautiful. But he said he began to feel claustrophobic with all those trees and was happy to return to his Montana landscape. I was quite stunned because I was still feeling homesick for those very trees that left him feeling closed in.

Yet spaciousness is not necessarily defined by size. Terry and I once stayed in Innsbruck in a small hotel. The room was so compact, so efficient. It was small, yes. But there was no sense of being confined, the design lending itself to an atmosphere of spaciousness.

Spaciousness also encompasses an inner world. In this time of so much clatter and clutter, the current political world fracturing all that once seemed reliable, our lives are at risk of giving way to withdrawal, closing ourselves in, isolating. Yet that withdrawal is different from maintaining a sense of inner spaciousness so necessary to our wellbeing.

Consider this: “Shift your frame of reference. Realise that all you see around you, ­the reality we perceive­, is a small stage upon which you act, and within it is an inner spaciousness that is infinite. Let’s now explore the infinite.

Alex Bennett

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

Edmund Burke argued that culture, which he called “manners,” is more important than politics. Manners, he wrote, “are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in great measure, the laws depend…Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like the air that we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, or supply them, or they totally destroy them.”

David Brooks, in his farewell column at the New York Times, sadly reported, “We have become a sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country. One recent historical study of American newspapers finds that public discourse is more negative now than at any time since 1850.”

I saw on Facebook where someone responded to his column disputing that America was lacking moral clarity. That person was a minister who had just come from Minneapolis, where the presence and behavior of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been opposed by many and protests have been continual. The minister felt strongly that “The people there are not morally adrift or nihilistic or any of the things Brooks describes. They are working together across every kind of difference and even risking their lives together based on the simple proposition that one should care for one’s neighbor.”

While the minister has a point, it seems quite apparent that we are experiencing a change in speech and behavior that is less disciplined, more hostile. Who would have ever imagined, for example, people attacking other passengers, even the flight attendants, on planes? Or students bullying other students to the point of their victims committing suicide?

Brooks says our “most grievous cultural wound is the loss of a shared moral order.” But he expresses hope as well, writing: “Despite what the cynics say, I still believe we’re driven not only by the selfish motivations but also by the moral ones—the desire to pursue some good, the desire to cooperate, to care for one another and to belong.”

It is up to each of us to demonstrate the truth of that last statement. As Emily Post once said, “Good manners reflect something from inside—an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.”

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

In 2021 I ended a post with this quote from Zig Ziglar: “If there is hope for the future, there is power in the present.” Re-reading that blog today, written a few short weeks after our nation’s capital was under siege January 6, 2021, I was reminded of Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist, who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was deported by the Nazis and spent three years in four different concentration camps, later writing this best-selling book over a period of nine days in 1946. This book, one of 39 that he wrote, described what he called Logotherapy, in which he promotes his theory that people’s primary motivation is to find meaning in our lives. I recall his describing how, in the horror of the concentration camps, he would keep himself going by imagining himself lecturing at a university once he was released. Thus his suffering in the camps would not go without meaning.

That was as much as I knew about him until my research revealed a much more detailed narrative. When he was a mere junior high student he began taking night classes in psychology. As a teen he began correspondence with Sigmund Freud, when Freud asked to publish one of Frankl’s papers. His first scientific paper was published when he was 19.

From age 23-25, as a med school student in 1928-30, he organized youth counseling centers to address the problem of the high suicide rate around the time of end of the year report cards. Sponsored by the city of Vienna and offered free to students, Frankl recruited other psychologists for the centers. In 1931 there was not one suicide among students.

In 1940, he joined Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Vienna still admitting Jews, as head of the neurology department. Prior to his deportation to the concentration camps, he helped numerous patients avoid the Nazi euthanasia program that targeted the mentally disabled.

This accomplished man, recently married when he was deported, lost his wife and all of his famiy except for a sister who managed to escape. Yet he was able to maintain hope in such a devastating time, a time now mirrored by our own. We, too, are called to maintain hope in this dark time. But there was also another piece of Frankl’s story I had never heard which emphasizes something else.

Frankl suggested there should be a Statue of Responsibility on the West coast, a complement to the Statue of Liberty on the East coast. He wrote: “In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

This idea got traction. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People got on board. A sculptor was chosen who designed a statue of two hands clasped, which was approved by Frankl’s widow. The idea had been to put it in a Pacific Ocean Harbor in California. Some regulations prevented that. But the governor of Utah offered a space there, which was approved. June 6, 2025 a 15 foot Statue of Responsibility honoring Frankl, nearly 28 years after his death, was unveiled at Alliant International University.

In my previous blog, I closed with a reminder that we had endured tumultous times before. Our founders had hope for a different kind of future. Today I add that those same founders had delinieated the rights and responsibiities entailed in the freedom they were promoting.

Hope and responsibility go hand in hand, as echoed in the witness of the Statue of Responsibility.

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Café

“A few blogs ago, I shared a quote from John Paul Lederach:

“Building peace is more often about creating space, developing relationships, persevering in spite of overwhelming pessimism, and being flexible enough to respond to emerging opportunities, meager as they may be.” 

Having never heard of him, I was intrigued. John Paul Lederach (born 1955) is an American Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. In 1994 he  founded and directed the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor. He has also worked with the foundation Humanity United.  His preparation for these roles began with a B.A. in History and Peace Studies, later followed by a Ph.D. in sociology.

His academic studies were enhanced by his hands-on work, drawing on his experience in the field as a mediator, negotiator, peacebuilding practitioner, trainer and consultant. At the international level, this has involved input into peace processes in Somalia, Northern Ireland, Nicaragua, Colombia and Nepal. Within communities, his work has often been at the level of reconciliation within church and family. In 2014 he said:

“Change only comes through ensuring that people are represented. In Somalia where I did a lot of my early work, there was no government and it was a chaotic situation. My job was to engage in longer term bottom-up grassroots work. You do this by establishing organisations for elders, women’s associations and so on which build strength into a community by creating space for civil society.”

How refreshing to hear of someone who has devoted his life to peacebuilding.  One last Lederach quote I will share: Reconciliation requires that we remember and change, but with honesty about our experience and curiosity about the humanness of the other whom we fear.”

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Café

“The way to develop the habit of savoring is to pause when something is beautiful and good and catches our attention—the sound of rain, the look of the night sky—the glow in a child’s eyes, or when we witness some act of kindness. Pause…then totally immerse in the experience of savoring it.”—Tara Brach

At Christmas, I received the newest edition of The Arist’s Way from my friend Diane and she challenged me to engage in  the described method in the book of writing three “morning pages” first thing when you get up.  I have attempted to be faithful to it.  One day this week as I wrote “stream of consciousness,” I noted that I am feeling “greedy for time” as I age.  That prompted me to ponder that thought in the days following.  Something didn’t sit well with me about being “greedy for time.”  The recognition has set in that my greed doesn’t produce any more time and that the only meaningful response is to savor the time gifted to me. 

       That response is a challenge.  We inevitably experience difficult circumstances that don’t lend themselves to pausing, “savoring.”  We have disappointments,  physical pain, emotional pain, losses, tragedies.  Our current political climate cuts close to the bone.  We are to practice “savoring” in the midst of this?

       In this sense, savoring is like being grateful.  Circumstances don’t always merit savoring or gratitude.  Yet paying attention, as Brach’s quote indicates, allows us to find even small, but nourishing, moments of awareness that inspire savoring the experience, feeling gratitude.

       I recall in speech class in high school choosing to do a presentation based on the quote:

“Yesterday is but a dream,
Tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” Even at 17 perhaps I had some inkling that life was calling on me to pause, pay attention, savor and offer gratitude.

 The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

 This past week we were treated to a Super Moon that was spectacular.  The moon was closer to the earth.  The earth was closer to the sun.  I was never one to lie basking in the sun.  Give me a moonlight stroll anytime! But sun or moon, we are people drawn to light.

In the dark week we have experienced with a runaway government wreaking havoc on our country and around the world, I discovered in my journal these quotes I had copied down at some time when I must have been seeking some comfort, some reminder of more than the surrounding chaos.

“Those who let their eyes adjust can see in the darkness.”  Susan Cain Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

“The Milky Way stretched overhead like the rainbow after a storm.  It was a promise that there was light everywhere even far away in the darkest of places.”  Candice Jarrett in her novel Moral Tether: A Young Adult Dystopian Apocalyptic Survival Novel.

“Obsessing over what is wrong will not invite what is right.  Dwelling in darkness keeps us from embracing the light.”  Anthony St. Maarten

“What would be the significance of the candlelight, if there were no darkness? What would be the power of the stars over our minds, if there were no light?” C. Joybell C

“Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded by light.”  Alan Brennet

“The Nelazan believed there was beauty in darkness and the daylight was more profane.  They saw the stars as the Thousand Eyes of Trell watching them.  The sun was the single, jealous eye of Trell’s brother, Nolt.  Since Nolt only had one eye, he made it blaze bightly to outshine his brother,  The Nelazan, however, wre not impressed and preferred to worship the quiet Trell who watched over them even when Nolt obscured the sky. “ Brandon Sanderson The Final Empire

And lastly, a reminder about peace in difficult times:

“Building peace is more often about creating space, developing relationships, persevering in spite of overwhelming pessimism, and being flexible enough to respond to emerging opportunities, meager as they may be.”  John Paul Lederach

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Café

One friend sent a Christmas letter in which she noted that she and her husband had decided this would be the last year to send Christmas cards, time and expense involved becoming more than they wanted to manage.  Fortunately, she is among a group of friends that keeps regular contact and gets together every couple of years for a reunion. I know we will still be in touch.  But given how the number of cards has dropped in my mailbox this year I think many folks have reduced the number of holiday greetings they send or they have discontinued the practice altogether. I am distressed that there are folks with whom I am likely going to lose contact.

Last year I went to a young twenty-something hairdresser I hadn’t been to before.  Making conversation, I said I had given up that I would get Christmas cards out before Christmas.  Puzzled, she said, “Christmas cards??”  She didn’t know what I was talking about.  As she thought about it, she finally said, “Oh, I remember my mother used to do that.”  I don’t know who was the more startled: I, that she had no clue initially what I was talking about or she, once she recalled it, that I was concerned about such an antiquated tradition.

This year I especially seem attuned to keeping folks close.  This may be motivated by my aging, wanting to maintain new connections and savor long-term relationships built over the years.  Likely the state of this uncertain world contributes to that sense as well.  When so much seems fragile, I turn to those reliable people whose love and friendship sustain me.

This led me to think about the song Auld Lang Syne, a Scottish tradition, normally sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve.  I learned from Wikipedia that there is a dance associated with this as well, which is done at Hogmanay, Scottish for “the last day of the year.”

“At Hogmanay in Scotland, it is common practice that everyone joins hands with the person next to them to form a great circle around the dance floor. At the beginning of the last verse (And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!/and gie’s a hand o’ thine!), everyone crosses their arms across their breast, so that the right hand reaches out to the neighbour on the left and vice versa.^[23][24] When the tune ends, everyone rushes to the middle, while still holding hands. When the circle is re-established, everyone turns under the arms to end up facing outwards with hands still joined. The tradition of singing the song when parting, with crossed hands linked, arose in the mid-19th century among Freemasons and other fraternal organisations.^[25][26]

Outside Scotland the hands are often crossed from the beginning of the song.” 

 This image could almost bring me to tears. In this time of so many expressions of hatred and cruelty, to think of this demonstration of friendship and connection touches me deeply.  Today I had a phone call from a friend of over sixty years and another one from friends we made on a vacation in the summer of 2024. What a gift!   New Year’s Eve we celebrate with a collection of friends, some more recent and some we have been sharing the ups and downs of life with for decades. Maybe we’ll sing Auld Lang Syne…..maybe even dance to it! (But likely not at midnight! Our decades are showing!)

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere.  That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”  This quote showed up in my memories on Facebook this week.  That thought strikes me in the solar plexus.  When I am in Chattanooga, I am happy to be near our daughter and son-in-law here and our longtime friends….and I am aware that I am not with our daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren in Maryland…I am aware I am not in Montana with our more recent friends and community there.  And this is indeed the price I pay “for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” 

Early in our marriage, we put our house on the market.   We were startled that it sold immediately.  Needing housing quickly, we moved in with my mother-in-law while we built another home.  One day while my husband and I were walking around the property which would eventually provide us years of comfort and pleasure, he said, “I could live in a tent with you” which translates to “Home doesn’t depend on building a new house.  Home is with you.” 

Thinking over our years together, I imagine our relationship as a tree, nurtured and rooted during our life.  All those people and places I miss when I am not there are the branches that have grown from this trunk, all part of a whole.  These are not disparate pieces of my life.  I have many  “homes.” They all belong to our story. And for that I am grateful.

“Good friends (I would alter this to say ‘The significant people in your life’) are like stars.  You don’t always see them, but you always know they are there.”

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate