Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

hope

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.

The part where the dream looks dead

Spring was just a week away. And we got slammed with a blizzard.

The days are getting longer. But the darkness feels like it’s all-encompassing.

This is the part of the story where things don’t look good for the hero. Where you hang on to the tiniest thread of hope that somehow, he’s going to come through this. But you really aren’t sure.

This is the part where the dream seems as good as dead.

Photo by Dikaseva via Splash

—

Months ago now, or maybe it’s been longer, we felt like God was nudging us to consider a move into the city. We currently live in the suburban-like developed-yet-rural area outside the city limits. And we are being pulled into the heart of the city.

We wanted to buy a house. Move this summer. Live happily ever after.

This is the part where the dream seems like it could die.

The part where the bank calls back and they sound like they wish they could do more but they just can’t offer you much in the way of a loan. And it’s not because your credit is bad (it’s near perfect) or you have sketchy job history (it’s stable in the same industry). It’s because of technicalities. Debt on your record that you currently don’t have to pay because of income requirements and weekly bonuses that don’t count because you haven’t been at your job long enough.

This is the part where you manage to end the call before you burst into tears. Where you stand in the kitchen and stir the pots on the stovetop for dinner and let the tears fall.

The part where you start listening to the voices, the mean ones in your head that tell you things you shouldn’t believe. They sound like your chiropractor, a working mom, who when you complain about the schedule changes this week because of the snow, says, “But you work from home, so it doesn’t matter, right?” She doesn’t meant it to be mean, but you hear her words as criticism. Combined with the call from the bank, you think, “Maybe I should give up this whole writing thing and get a real job. One that actually pays the bills. What kind of fool sits at home writing all day, dreaming of the day when her words will be in the world and maybe just maybe bring a little bit of money with them?” It doesn’t help that you might be on the verge of losing a project you’ve spent 18 months working on.

This is the part of the story where you were just starting to feel good about life again. Hopeful, even. And now the demons are back. The old feelings of anger, bitterness and despair are rising, and you’re questioning all the events from the past you can’t change. Why did they have to happen the way they did?

The voices also say this is the part of the story you shouldn’t tell. You should wait till there’s resolution, one way or another, because OMG, Lisa, dramatic much? You are Chicken Little and the sky is falling and you are telling everyone before you can think it through.

And yet this is the part of the story that makes the story.

Think about it: In your favorite movie or book, there’s probably a moment when the dream looks dead. The goal, unreachable.

Tara is ruined. Westley is dead. The ring is in the wrong hands. Hogwarts has fallen. (Forgive my oversimplifications.)

What would a good story be without a moment of doubt?

—

That these feelings should occur during Lent is no coincidence. Our family decided to cut out TV for this span, not because we think it will make us more holy, but because we often find ourselves turning to it as a distraction. And I’ve never wanted a distraction so much as I have this week. I want to zone out, live someone else’s life through the screen, and forget about my own problems.

But the TV isn’t an option. So I’m forced to feel. And deal.

Lent feels like a slow march to death sometimes. Even though Easter is coming, we have to go through Good Friday to get there and Good Friday is the darkest point of the story. The dream, the hope, the promise is dead. And there’s nothing anyone can do but mourn.

Until two days later, when we see that death is not where the story ends. The story ends with life. Rebirth. Resurrection.

Photo by John Silliman via Unsplash

I’ve read enough stories to know that it’s true. This part where things are all wrong and it seems devoid of hope is not the end. (But it’s still hard to believe that in the day-to-day.) The seed in the ground, buried under dirt, is not the end. It’s the beginning. The only way to life.

This is the part where the dream seems dead. It’s just a part of the story, and however long it lasts, I will try to see it as such. An end to this story is coming and I will remember this part of it.

Because what kind of story would it be without the part where all seems lost?