Hope

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

-Emily Dickinson

Friday night was an exciting night for my husband and I. I was getting the baby to sleep, he was carting our old bed out to the dumpster to make space for the new bed we were getting on Saturday. He had gotten the mattress downstairs and was taking the box spring out when I heard a *pop* sound. Now, in our neighborhood we often have people setting off fireworks at all times of the year, so I at first told myself that it was a firework. But then *pop,pop,pop*. No. Not a firework. The very distinctive sound of gunfire. And my husband was outside.
I live in a nice part of town. It's quiet, we live near a police substation. So gunfire is not typical. In the two years that we've lived here we have never ever had an incident like this.
I sat on the couch, frozen, trying to decide if it was safe to go outside and check on James or if I should stay where I was. After all, I was holding the baby. Finally I could stand it no longer and I went outside to make sure James was OK. And thankfully he was fine. He had seen the whole thing though and it appeared that one car was chasing another and firing shots at it. I was just glad he was safe.
Several of our neighbors came outside to see what had happened and to make sure no stray shots had injured anyone around us. Luckily, nobody appears to have been injured in the incident.

We all chatted for a bit, compared notes, and we even met a couple of new neighbors who had moved in recently. We all went back inside and back to whatever we had been doing. Maybe a bit shaken up, but safe all the same.
A friend of mine, remarking on the incident, said it seemed at times as though the world must be coming to an end. After all, in the last week there were several earthquakes, a hurricane was bearing down on the East coast, the economy is struggling, people are out of work, and it seems as though the news can report on nothing but murder, kidnapping, bombings, war, death, famine and so on.

I agree that the times seem bleak. They are dreadful and awful things happening everywhere. Murder, riots, war-the world can be a scary place. And it certainly seems there is nothing good to report or surely it would make the news. Reasons to be afraid, reasons to hide, to despair, are everywhere. Fear is screaming in our faces every day.

And yet, I have hope. We did not cower in our homes in fear. We came out to make sure that we were safe. We began new connections. Our lives go on. My son made two new friends at church today. Apparently he isn't the only one who loves to run around the sanctuary after services. Our baby has learned to sit up by himself and is beginning to crawl. My geranium is finally recovering from the mauling it took last month.
All of these things are small. They are quiet. They almost escape notice. They do not make the news. They do not cry out for attention.

And this is why. Hope does not require our attention to exist. Hope simply exists. Hope is there, waiting quietly, for us to notice. It does not need our regard in order to be. So Hope is a quiet thing. It is a thing told in whispers, in hugs, in laughter, in concern for another. Hope exists in moments of compassion and forgiveness, in moments of grace. Hope exists in peace, and Hope exists in war. In times of plenty or in famine, Hope is there.

Fear, on the other hand, requires a lot. It needs our attention. In needs our anger, our mistrust, our ignorance. It must clamor and shout because if we stop paying attention, if we stop feeding it, it will cease to exist. The more we fear, the bigger it becomes. We have more and more things to be afraid of. Soon anything can be a source of fear. We become paralyzed. We cannot act. And yet...

Hope can be found here as well. Because we have a choice. We can choose to turn away from fear. We can choose Hope. And Hope will always be there for us. Waiting quietly and patiently for us to forget our fear.