Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Café
In a previous blog several weeks ago, I made reference to a book I had discovered and intended to order called Hope in the Dark. Since receiving it, I have been steadily working my way through it, not so much seeking answers as seeking anchors, something solid in this current murky morass.
Published in 2004, the time frame in which author Rebecca Solnit wrote was in the early days of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Thanksgiving before President Bush led us into that quagmire, my brother, who was visiting us at the time, said he thought all the rhetoric was “just a lot of saber rattling.” But before it was over one of his sons would do multiple tours there and now suffers from PTSD. Unforeseen consequences? Apparently so, as 82% of the country supported the invasion, at least initially. Eighteen percent of us bore the mantle laid on us of “unpatriotic.”
Yet Solnit sifts though the circumstances like a beachcomber finding the ocean’s treasures left behind amid the litter. The litter is most certainly there but we are remiss if that is all to which we give our attention. In her opening, Solnit refers to Virginia Woolf’s statement that: “The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be” which the author interprets to be dark as inscrutable rather than terrible. She notes that we often mistake the one for the other and elaborates: “Or we transform the future’s unknowability into something certain, the fulfillment of our dread, the place beyond which there is no way forward. But again and again, far stranger things happen than the end of the world.”
The context eludes me now, but I came across the term “sparks in the dark” this week and latched onto it. “Sparks” conveys energy, an energy that is the fuel of hope. Hope inspires action, whether quiet or bold, even when that action may be simply putting one foot in front of the other. Despair is hope that has run out of fuel. The antidote is movement. I think of the fellow in the Bible described as lying by the pool of Bethesda, “hoping for a miracle” that the waters reputed for healing powers would stir and he could be cured and mobile again. But as the story unfolds, Jesus says, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk!”
I offer some encouragement for the journey:
“Hope is the small light that insists the path ahead is still possible.” – Grace Ellison “When you plant hope, you harvest courage to face tomorrow.” – Marcus Reed “Hope whispers that the worst moment is only a chapter, not the whole story.” – Amelia Brown
Insist on Hope read the church marquis this week. Let us insist. Let us persist.
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
Hope's Cafe 