on Psalm 10
New Revised Standard Version
most hopeful
choosing to be most hopeful
Tag Archives: hopeless
a faint sound of something
I could hear it
our shoes making a shoddy moon
on the fifteenth floor looking out over the city.
I can always hear the other
the sound of killing
shooting, the ringing of it
the sound of racism
silence, the subtlety of it
the sound of oppression
cash registers, the shininess of it
the sound of isolation
weeping, the breath-stealing nature of it
I can always hear the paranoia in the shadows of the other
I can always hear the anger in the panicky crisis
I can always hear the hopelessness in the news banner
flashing across the bottom of the screen
but there
moon-shaped shoes filled with
women and men now family and friend
the best and true of both
standing up and holding hands in prayer
as if holding hands kept us from blowing down
or blowing apart
or blowing away
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven
thy kingdom come
to the ringing
to the subtlety
to the shininess
to the breath-stealing
and make things whole
we asked.
And it was in that moment
over and above and beyond and inside and all around
I could hear the faint sound of something
a symphony of some kind
a little more melodious
a little more beautiful
a little more free
I could hear a faint sound of something
–a symphony of some kind–
and it sounded like hope.
djordan
Rosemary Beach
just right, right now
I have this great desire
to look you square in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes
to those places where you are
asking questions
raising doubts
blaming yourself
doubting your capacity
questioning your integrity
and holding your own peace hostage
to the ideas that you,
and others for you,
have created about
what you are supposed to be by now
what your past really means about you
how you really should feel about this
what you really should do about that
I want to look you in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes
to those places that hold the truth
and when you think all’s lost
because the truth is finally known
because you have to admit
that you aren’t who you want to be
that you aren’t who you hope to be
that you aren’t what you think you can be
it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and shake you like your life depends on it
and shake you like my life depends on it
it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and look you in the eyes
and beyond your eyes
so you know the truth about who we are is known
and it’s mutual.
And then,
I want to take a deep breath
and pause
and let you know
how incredibly proud God is of you
how incredibly pleased God is with you
how incredibly jealous God is for you, and
how incredibly restless God is because
you are still too afraid to say
the refrain he’s been waiting to hear you say
for quite some time now:
“I am just right. Right now.”
I have this great desire
that you can look yourself in the eyes
and say, “I am just right. Right now.”
djordan
Pine Tree Dr.
You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.
///
You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.
– e.e. cummings –
the always puzzle of living and doing
things regarded as dead
I woke up Easter morning to find an email from a friend that only read:
“Today may you start seeing God’s resurrection of things regarded as dead.”
One week later, I’m not sure in what ways I’m starting to see the resurrection of things regarded as dead.
I let a lady check out in front of me today at the store, and she replied that chivalry might not be dead.
Another lady at another store had to ask me a million different questions and try to sell me on a million different offers during the checkout process. I thought nothing of it all until she leaned over the register and said, “thanks, at least, for being nice about all this, young man.”
I went to the funeral today of a good friend’s father who got sudden news of serious cancer, and within weeks, goodbyes were said and tearful thanks given for the notion that the end of life might not actually be an end at all. As much as it still hurts like hell, of course.
And so I wonder, one week after Easter, what it means to begin seeing God’s resurrection of things regarded as dead.
Chivalry.
Kindness.
The lost life of a father.
What about hope that good can overcome evil?
That generosity can overcome greedy anxiety?
That humility beats out power and success and ambition?
That justice can break its way into dark injustices?
That forgiveness is stronger than any force of revenge and retaliation.
That families can come together, no matter how they’ve wrestled apart.
That marriages can make it.
That children can make it to adulthood.
That adults can remember the joy of childhood.
That abundance can make its way to those living in great scarcity.
Abundance and scarcity of money, identity, understanding and freedom.
We don’t build our church buildings next to our graveyards anymore, and we’ve likely forgotten altogether the resurrection we’ve been counting on as a ragtag group of women and men and liars and lovers all these years.
We’ve also likely forgotten that things we’ve already written off and sealed up and buried deep as dead impossibilities are waiting, one week after Easter as much as easter morning itself, for the resurrection.
Hope, generosity, justice, families, marriages, children, adults, abundance, scarcity and equality, identity, understanding and freedom.
Chivalry isn’t dead.
Neither is the hope, and therefore the prayer, that God’s kingdom come, and his will be done, on the earth this week after Easter Sunday, as it is in heaven.
djordan
Pine Tree
scarred by struggle, transformed by hope
I received a book in the mail today from a friend I met through the blog.
Multiple conversations have been had via email, with time and oceans in between, about issues of faith and justice and loss and hope and hopelessness and holding on. When I recently had a time of near blog-silence, she checked in to see how things were. She immediately hit right on the nature of the issues adding to the silence, and gracefully wrote words that echoed like prayers of acceptance of creative silence, and requesting of hopeful imagination.
And today, after waking up to run, pour a slow cup of coffee and then get back to work at Area Relief Ministries for the first time since mid-December, I walked in to see a package on my desk. I opened it up and immediately knew who it was from, as this friend had referenced the book in an email during those dry days.
The following is an excerpt, and the book itself, sitting on my desk in its packaging waiting quietly like the sneaky gift it was is now a reminder, of how the kingdom community is broader and larger and more powerful than I remember on most days. It is ebbing and flowing in and out of our quiet and alive places, keeping us moving and pushing forward, even when we aren’t sure why it’s worth it.
So to this friend, and the other friends of which there are many brave and marginalized kingdom-souls, who are willing to tell the stories of struggle in an effort to sing the true songs of hope, I cannot say thank you enough.
djordan
108 S Church
“Hope is rooted in the past but believes in the future. God’s world is in God’s hands, hope says, and therefore cannot possibly be hopeless. Life, already fulfilled in God, is only the process of coming to realize that we have been given everything we need to come to fullness of life, both here and hereafter. The greater the hope, the greater the appreciation of life now, the greater the confidence in the future, whatever it is.
But if struggle is the process of evolution from spiritual emptiness to spiritual wisdom, hope is a process as well. Hope, the response of the spiritual person to struggle, takes us from the risk of inner stagnation, of emotional despair, to a total transformation of life. … The spirituality of struggle gives birth to the spirituality of hope.”
from “Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope,” by J.D. Chittister
on advent | before we sing the song of Christmas
My house is actually clean because I threw a party here a week ago.
The Christmas tree has stopped shorting out with the help of an extra extension cord.
All the gifts are in and waiting to be wrapped.
Money is in the bank, and a job waits for me when I return from the holidays.
Evenings and meals with candlelight and laughter are planned nightly for the next week.
There is plenty to be joyful for in the days approaching Christmas for me.
But couples wrestle with miscarriage.
Clients wrestle with families falling apart.
Participants wrestle with utilities being shut off.
Loved ones wrestle with pressing in depression and hopelessness.
Men wrestle with finding a bridge under which to put a pillow for the night.
Strangers wrestle with missing six-year-olds for Christmas morning.
Friends wrestle with the murdered son, husband, wife, daughter.
There is plenty to be broken-hearted for in the days approaching Christmas for me and others.
Enter the truth of advent.
Beyond flashy Christmas programs and shiny Christmas cards
taken twenty times until we liked the way our chins looked,
Beyond rhetoric over guns and entitlement and taxes and “wars on Christmas,”
sits a spinning world that while some goes well,
much goes not well.
Enter the truth of advent.
Skipped for Christmas morning by many churches and Christians
following in line behind consumers and the mighty dollar,
Advent waits in the dark nights before Christmas morning
telling the truth
allowing the tears
holding out hope
that while the world goes not well
the kingdom comes.
And when advent is allowed to enter
and linger under candlelight,
the words of the old hymn make a little more sense,
and make Christmas morning a little more important,
because we were allowed to wait for Christmas.
O ye beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Until the new heaven and earth own their King,
May we tell ourselves the truth of Advent
before we sing the song of Christmas.
Amen.
djordan
Pine Tree
sabbath tuesday mornings
the beauty of the sabbath
and the reminder of both
all we can accomplish
and all we can only hope for
in our work
is found in
the beauty of the sabbath
rest required
in small part because we need the break
in large part because we need the reminder
that we are joining in the work
not steering it
not guiding it
not forcing it
but joining it
but learning it
but trusting it
and so the sabbath
becomes the reminder
that we are invited
that we are needed
that we are a part,
and only a part
a humble
a grateful
a broken part,
of the magic of the work.
so there is always time to rest
even on sabbath Tuesday mornings.
djordan
Pine Tree
Related articles
- the tension in us (mosthopeful.com)
- silence drips into pure gold (mosthopeful.com)
- rule-breakers and peace-makers (mosthopeful.com)
- when there’s nothing to fight for (mosthopeful.com)
resurrection and the third way
It’s not even that we are being foolish to assume that one of two options is all we have to hope for, or if we’re lucky, all we have to choose from. We can feel the tension building as the story climbs to the cross, and if we didn’t know better, which of course we do know better, we would be hoping that they would change their minds and let him down. Or at least he would finally decide to call some winged agents in to take him down so he could find his place of importance on the throne.
We think it is only that, now, or death.
And death is final.
So we can’t blame the ladies for waking up the next day and taking the spices and oils they had worked on the night before as their tears feel into the mix. There were two ways, death or something spectacular there on the cross, and death is the way that won. So they head there prepared to prepare his body.
And that’s when we all learned for the first time, of many times by now, that there are more than two ways of being and moving forward in this world.
That empty gravesite sits for us now as a reminder of our calling to follow Christ into the kingdom of the third way, the kingdom of impossibility, the kingdom of breathing new life into dying things, the kingdom of defeating death, the kingdom of upside-down conclusions to right-side-up stories.
With the poor.
With the lonely.
With the addicted.
With the greedy.
With the grieving.
With the marginalized.
With the marginalizers.
With the hopeless.
With those of us who have resigned to the fact that all is lost, so we prepare to bury our hopes and dreams for a new life and a new kind of world.
Welcome, today, in light of the resurrection, to the kingdom of upside-down conclusions to the stories we find ourselves in.
djordan
Pine Tree Dr.
On Easter
most hopeful 