Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

advent

Keep looking: thoughts on Advent and hope

Our son turned 12 this week, and to celebrate he wanted to have a friend over for part of the afternoon into dinner the Saturday after his actual birthday. (On the day of his birthday, we celebrated by getting his first COVID shot. We sure know how to party!) We went to the ice cream store to pick out an ice cream cake then drove to his friend’s house. The boys played together for hours–outside and inside. We feasted on sushi and the chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake, then the kids resumed their video games with raucous outbursts that had me flinching. I like a quiet house as the evening descends. This was the opposite of that.

When we finally piled into the car to take his friend home, I was more than ready for some quiet. It had been a long week. We drove away from the lights of the business district where we live into the countryside where night seems darker because of the Amish houses (no electricity) scattered amongst the clusters of houses. Near a particularly dark corner, I turned onto the road, glanced up at the sky briefly–the stars are always calling to me–and saw an orange-ish streak of light cross my field of view.

A shooting star?, I thought.

It was so brief, I wondered if I had imagined it, but as we drove the rest of the way to our friends’ house, I held on to the image in my mind.

I didn’t want to forget what I had seen.

—

The week before our son’s birthday celebration was full of transition. It was also the first week of Advent. During that week, our daughter got braces, my husband started a new job, our son turned 12. Those events alone would have been enough to keep us busy. But then our daughter developed some cold-like symptoms that kept her (and me) home from school for two days and caused us to go get a COVID test for her (it was negative). On his birthday, our son got his first COVID vaccine.

At the beginning of the week, when our church lit the “hope” candle for Advent, I was low on hope even as the decorations in the auditorium and the music surrounded me with a feeling of hope. At small group Sunday night I talked about how hard it is sometimes for me to hope, how I don’t feel naturally hopeful, how hope seems skittish to me. Like if I look at it for too long, it will run away and hide.

I woke up Monday morning vowing to keep my eyes open for signs of hope. But I also went looking for hope.

I listened to a selection of music from a band called The Brilliance on repeat. I re-read Emily Dickinson’s poem “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” reminding myself that hope is sweetest in the midst of the storm. I listened to a podcast interview with author Jason Reynolds titled “The antidote to hopelessness.” He said it’s to spend time with youth. I read a couple of blog posts/newsletter essays–one about hope being at the gates, another about lighting more candles in advent. I listened to Kate Bowler talk about hope and how tricky that can be in the midst of a cancer diagnosis when people “hope at you,” as she says. I read this article in The Atlantic about the opposite of toxic positivity and learned a new phrase that lingers in my mind–“tragic optimism.” 

I allowed myself to feel hopeful when the song “I’m Alive” by The Hooters came on the radio.

On a walk in the early evening one night, I tried to capture hope with my phone camera as the sun set in an array of brilliant colors.

By the time I saw the shooting star on Saturday night, my soul had been tuned for hope. I felt different than I had at the beginning of the week. But it didn’t just happen. I had to actively look for it.

—

I have wanted to see a shooting star or a meteor shower for years. When a news article declares the time is right to see them, I often forget or I can’t drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night or there’s too much light pollution. These sorts of celestial events are happening all the time, I’m sure, whether I’m aware of them or not, and looking for them takes patience and planning.

When I saw the shooting star on Saturday night, it reminded me of hope. How fleeting it feels and how serendipitous it can be. If I had looked up a second sooner or later or not at all, I would have missed the shooting star. If I hadn’t been looking for hope this week, I would have missed it. 

But it would have still been there. The shooting star would have streaked across the sky whether I had seen it or not. Hope, I think, is the same. It’s out there, actively happening and waiting to be noticed.

Even having seen it, it’s still easy to doubt. Moments after I saw the shooting star, I thought, did I really just see that? Or did I imagine it?

Hope can feel the same way. Is it real? Or did I just imagine it?

Photo by Ronak Valobobhai on Unsplash

This is why I think it takes some practice. And consistency. Just like I can’t expect to look up one time at the night sky and see a shooting star, I can’t try just once to see hope in the world around me. 

I have to keep looking.

Sometimes I’ll find it. Sometimes I won’t.

But that doesn’t mean I stop looking.

This will be my practice for the rest of Advent: to keep looking. 

This week, I will seek out peace. Next week, it will be joy. Then, love.

I can’t wait to see what I find.

Soul-stirring poetry: Review of Between Heaven and Earth by Kelly Chripczuk

I have had a complicated relationship with poetry through the years–hating it because I didn’t understand it then scribbling dozens of them while on lunch break in the park during my journalism career then giving them up for years. I’m now back to reading–and occasionally writing–poetry with a renewed sense of awe and wonder. Poetry has a way of stripping things down to the barest essentials while still bearing a stunning beauty.

That is what I found in my friend Kelly Chripczuk’s new book Between Heaven and Earth. It is a book of poems–some inspired by biblical texts (Heaven), others by ordinary life events (Earth), and others about the moments where the two intersect.

Kelly has a gift for taking these ordinary events of life and familiar Bible passages and expressing them in a fresh way. I was moved to contemplation after reading each one, and I look forward to making this a regular practice–the reading of poetry and holding it for a few moments beyond the reading. These poems are soul-stirring, uplifting, and prayerful–a beautiful combination. (While I did read an advance copy of the book from the author, my opinion reflected her is my honest one.) If you are new to poetry or returning to it again after a time, Between Heaven and Earth is a good place to start.

The following is an excerpt from the book, shared with permission from the author. I had trouble choosing a favorite poem, as so many of them left me with a feeling of wonder and contemplation. One read-through is not enough. But this one, especially, evokes so much feeling in me and showcases the way Kelly uses imagery to draw attention to a familiar word or concept (resurrection) in a new way.

To Experience Resurrection

John 20:1-9

You have to return to the tomb
to experience resurrection.
Return to the place where once
you knew without doubt
all hope was gone, the last
dying gasp of breath expelled.
Return to silence and
the great tearing open
of sky and earth.

The first sign of spring
is the revelation of winter’s
destruction. Snow’s clean
slate hides decay. But,
when the sun’s warmth rises,
it discloses a depth
of loss – the grass,
brown and trampled, barren
broken limbs scattered, earth
exposed and the empty stretch
of field filled with brown stalks
of decomposition.

This is the time of waiting,
the time in which we grow
weary and lose heart.

You have to watch sleeping
soil, pull back brown leaves,
lean close scanning hidden
places. You have to stand beside
the stone, Martha would tell us,
your trembling hand pressed against
its cold, hard surface. You have to enter
the dark cave, Peter whispers, not knowing
what you’ll find.

You have to sit through the long,
dark night to see the first light of morning,
to feel the sharp intake of breath
as the sky’s closed eye, cold and gray
cracks open slowly, then with growing
determination. This is what you must do
to experience resurrection.

Pick up a copy of Between Heaven and Earth here. And follow Kelly’s other writings here. (She also has a book about chickens and the adventures that come with having them as part of your life.)

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