Driving our Dodge Caravan down 95th street at
3:30pm, the line of cars in front of me braking red because of the yellow light
flashing on the white “School Zone” sign to my left, I see a boy-man swaying
down the sidewalk, ear buds in ears, head bobbing side-to-side, backpack barely
hanging onto wide shoulders, and a goat loaded up like a pack mule trotting
down the sidewalk behind him.
What in the world?
I close and open my eyes just as our van passes the shaggy,
brown-haired, two-horned, bearded goat and his teenage owner, and I yell at my
boys sitting quietly (for once!) in the back seat, “Boys! Look over there! A
goat!” As the boys look over their shoulders at the goat’s swaying rump, my
mind wanders from 95th street to the time my parents took my boys
and I to Deanna Rose—a working farm in the middle of the city—to feed a tribe
of shaggy goats.
I remember Dad pushing silver quarters in a gumball-looking
machine that dumped out brown lumps of goat feed into waiting palms. I remember
three-year-old Micah running into the goat pen, food pellets dropping from clenched fingers, only to fly out screaming when a grey goat with glossy black eyes
gnawed on his white t-shirt, leaving behind a hole, slimy goat spit, and a kid
who didn’t like goats anymore . . . .
It’s that time of year again—when the smallest (or
strangest) thing triggers a mural of memories. You see a piece of jewelry, an
old black-n-white photo, a sweater, a restaurant sign, and one memory leads to
another, leaving you in tears of joy or tears of pain.
Even now, as I sit on the white couch in my living room
typing on my laptop, I hear the deep bong-bong,
click-click, click-click, of the
electric clock on my buffet, an out-of-the-blue gift from a cousin earlier this
year. Across the bottom of the dark wood clock is a silver plate with the
inscription: Irma and Gil, 25th
Anniversary, 1937-1962.
That clock sat on top of the TV cabinet in Grandma Irma’s Chicago
And now, twenty-some years later, I remember another family
conversation, a conversation between Dad and I the morning after one of mom’s
rages ended in scary suicide threats and crazy stories. I remember pleading
with Dad to see a Christian counselor who specialized in such things, and he said:
“There’s nothing
I can do. I’ve tried it all. There’s
nothing a counselor can tell me that I
don’t already know. This is my life for the rest of my life,” his voice flat-line, cold,
matter-of-fact.
No hope. No hope. No
hope.
I remember saying to Dad, the pastor turned seminary
professor: “But God can do anything,
anything at all. There’s always Hope!”
but even as I said the words, they felt soulless because I wasn’t sure if I
believed them anymore.
No hope. No hope. No
hope.
And the memory of Dad’s hopelessness
brings me back to my junior year of college—sitting in American Lit. with Dr.
Sommers, the white winter sun beaming in through the narrow window of the
fourth floor classroom onto the worn blue carpet, and I hear her voice reading
soft:
“’Hope’
is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune
without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is
heard - And sore must be the storm- That could abash the little Bird - That
kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest
Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.”
Emily Dickinson).
According to Miss Dickinson, Hope
keeps you warm in the midst of a storm, in the chillest land, on the strangest
sea. Hope is like a bird—perching on the edge of your soul, singing a silent, sweet
song that buoys you up in the hardest of times.
But what is the foundation
of this Hope? What keeps Hope singing its silent song to your soul, even in the
most hopeless of situations, the darkest of memories? What makes Hope more than
mere wishful thinking: “I hope things will turn out!”
What makes Hope the sure anchor of
the soul?
For years I put my Hope in family members getting help, in
counselors giving answers, in research and understanding, in ME just being
strong enough, fighting hard enough to fix all the problems in my life. But I was left feeling betrayed, disappointed.
And this morning, as I ran my miles on the treadmill, I put
this song on repeat, letting the truths sooth my soul:
Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ's the Rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ's the Rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.
(Stricken, Smitten
and Afflicted, emphasis mine)
This
year, as my mind inevitably travels down the hall of memories, as my heart longs
for healing in my family, I place my Hope in He who does not disappoint: And hope does not disappoint
us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, whom he has given us.(Romans
5:5-8)
This
year, when tears of sorrow fall--for lost family, for broken marriages, for the
difficulty of life circumstances, I look to Jesus, the sure foundation of my Hope.
He is love and peace, and works “all
things together for good.”
May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
Salve to the soul this morning: Fernando Ortega's Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted.
Related Post: My Mamaw: Origins of Delusion
