Conversation Point

Hope Quest

Remember the old days?

So many answers for one simple question. In this case, I am reflecting on how far we have come in securing directions from here to there, wherever here and there may be. Used to be that maps were needed, sometimes several maps, all spread out on the kitchen table or the living room floor. Travelers-in-waiting, we would find our location, pinpoint our destination and start connecting the roads in between. Eventually the American Automobile Association (AAA) enhanced that process with small, flip chart specimens known as TripTiks, eliminating the constant "open the whole map, refold the whole map, uncrumple the whole map" process that frustrated the most gifted map reader. Make no mistake: map reading is a gift. For those of us not blessed with the ability to glance at a paper full of multicolored, squiggly lines and be able to determine our immediate destiny, map reading is torture in a foreign language. Maps mock us.

Enter MapQuest.

Whoever thought of MapQuest deserves a metal, a large page in the great annuls of history and a big ice cream cone for getting this one crucial thing right.
All MapQuest requires of us is to type in where we are, where we want to go and hit enter.

Then, a miracle happens.

All the directions, from backing out of your driveway to pulling into the driveway at the end of your journey is right there in front of you. Granted, all of this needs to be printed out, kept in order and followed to the letter to arrive at one's destination. And, admittedly, sometimes there are glitches and errors. But overall, what a great system!

Hope is a lot like trying to figure out our journey with a map, whether it be a paper one or the computerized version. We need to understand where here is, where there is and what roads we will need to use in between to get from here to there. For hope is not an ethereal concept, a false belief couched in sentimentality and shattered dreams. Hope is tangible, realistic and necessary for we human beings to fully live our lives and our faith.

Where does hope begin? Hope is the belief or understanding that something we can's see, touch, smell, taste or hear already exists or can be created. Hope begins, makes its debut, when we acknowledge something as possible that we don't yet have in our grasp. Finding hope means looking in the right places, searching with an open heart and mind for that which can be made real by our thoughts, words, actions, even our faith.

Jesus spoke openly, boldly and frequently about hope. Each time he asked a damaged human being what they wanted, he invited them to step into the grand arena of hope. Whenever Jesus preached and asked questions about where the kingdom of heaven could be found, he beckoned his listeners to follow him to a place called hope. While Jesus ate with reviled tax collectors, told parables about the hated Samaritans and welcomed the least obvious souls as his cherished followers, he extended a hand to everybody around him to join him in the promised land of hope. Jesus embodied hope, the belief, the understanding that something unseen, untouchable, unfathomable already exited and could be created in the present moment in the lives of the people around him. These became the people of whom the author of Hebrews spoke: "Let us hold fast our confession of hope without wavering, for God who has promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23.)." Ordinary people choosing to believe the extraordinary was not only possible, but immediately available.

That immediacy of Jesus' presence in that ancient world is enviable. Many of us ultimately use historical distance as a buffer against living our own faith. But centuries of wars, human strife, births, marriages, deaths and taxes don't provide us with any excuses not to hope. In fact, they only serve as a collectively solid reason to keep hoping, keep embracing the truth that hope prevails despite the human condition.

While pondering the idea of hope today I did what many of us do each day: I browsed through the newspaper and perused the breaking headlines on the internet. Most of what I read could not be said to inspire hope. I didn't see much overtly good news. Floods, cyclones, fires and tornados led the natural disaster category. A number of beloved public figures have passed on in the last several weeks leaving grieving families, friends and fans behind. The economy is dismal at best. Gasoline prices are soaring. Many people are losing their homes to foreclosure.

So in all these circumstances, where does hope begin?

Hope begins as the belief, the understanding that something unseen, untouchable, unfathomable already exits and can be created in the present moment in our lives and the lives of the people around us. Hope begins with ordinary people choosing to believe the extraordinary is not only possible, but immediately available. The author of Hebrews also wrote that, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1)." When we hope we are bridged to faith as the assurance that what we believe is real and getting ready to be welcomed into our lives.

Hope begins as the belief that something unseen already exists and can be created in the present. There are floods, cyclones, fires and tornados in abundance. Hope continues as faithful action when ordinary people willing to help those who have suffered through these disasters come forward to relieve that suffering in extraordinary ways. People die everyday, known and unknown to the public community. Hope continues as these lives move from our daily interaction to become our cherished memories. The economy is dismal, gasoline prices soar and many people are losing their homes to foreclosure. Hope lives on in the creativity of those seeking to empower each other with realistic ways to live well in a changing world.

I continue to believe that hope is a lot like trying to figure out our journey with a map, whether it be a paper one or the computerized version. We need to understand where here is, where there is and what roads we will need to use in between to get from here to there. Where we are may not look very hopeful, but it is where we are. Where we are headed is our choice. For hope is not an ethereal concept, a false belief couched in sentimentality and shattered dreams. Hope is tangible, realistic and necessary for we human beings to fully live our lives and our faith. If we are headed for hope as the promised land to which Jesus invited, beckoned and led his followers, that place of making real that which we are not quite able to touch, we will understand hope from its inception and recognize each sign along the way. We will then be living the journey of hope itself.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 6:04 PM 0 comments

God's Paper Cups

My mom sold our family home last year, the one in which I grew up, so when I make my visit this fall I will only be doing a drive-by visitation of the old homestead. Fortunately, the people who bought the house rehabbed it and had it posted on the web with a local realtor for a few months. That satisfied my curiosity about how the place looked, and it was pleasing to note how they had cared for it. Hopefully, whoever now lives there will love it. My hope, too, is that they will keep the lovely birch tree that has stood proudly in the front yard for over thirty-five years.

The property on which the house stands, while small, is standard for the neighborhood. What made it special for our family was the bounty my parents created, bringing in pear, apple and plum trees, as well as asparagus, raspberries, rhubarb and Concord grapes, all of which we enjoyed, each in their seasons of plenty. A summer garden grew green beans, onions, tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers. What we didn't eat fresh or share with friends was canned by my mother, something a lot of moms did then, even though the process has fallen out of fashion with my generation. I appreciated the plums and raspberries most.. I have also retrofitted my honor for the richness of the past with respect for what asparagus and rhubarb cost at my local market.

While I remember the whole of the backyard bounty with fondness, the trees did more than feed our bodies. They also fed our souls. What is better on a warm Wisconsin summer afternoon than to welcome a tree's imagination into your own, establishing a whole world within the boundaries of its shade and strong branches? Perhaps they were simpler times and often I think that is a good thing, at least for me. I'm glad I still have the memories because the trees and the gardens are now gone.

Which brings me back to the birch tree out front.

I remember the day the it came home to us. A new Walgreens had opened downtown. As a promotion the store was giving away seedling birch trees in large paper cups. Our cup turned out to contain three trees, but only one was sturdy enough to withstand the traffic outside our front door. Once it took root it grew quickly and beautifully. It never was quite tall enough for me to sit under and dream, as I had done so often with the fruit trees out back, but it was graceful, peaceful in the way that only birches can be. Their cream-colored bark, interspersed with deeply brown knots, lend themselves to an especially romantic nature. Our birch became my birch as it grew tall outside my bedroom window. As it reached for the sky, so did I, and soon I left home for the rest of my life.

We all have these stories. Growing up and moving on is the stuff of which life is made. What caught my heart's attention at this time in my life isn't only the anticipated trip home and all the changes that have occurred in my absence. It is to recognize, again, that containers, boundaries, are good for us, but only for certain periods of time. If we stay stuck in them past their intended function we risk stunting our own growth and potentially our future lives. The birch tree would never have been if we had needed to keep it cloistered in its original holder, but by the same token the tree would never have made it to our door if not for the same cup. Nature gives us some clear-cut, obvious lessons, but they are usually a bit challenging to apply to human lives that usually have more gray areas, doubts and questions than seedling trees. Perhaps this idea is somehow related to human beings needing both roots and wings to flourish. Considering all these things my mind also wanders over to the inherent faith lessons.

First and foremost, I firmly believe that God didn't create me or anyone else to stay stuck romanticizing our childhood if we were fortunate enough to have one with some positive attributes. Starting life with a connection to creation unites us in a tangible fashion to our Creator. A whole lot of love from my parents went into that backyard too. They both remembered growing up during the Great Depression and wanted us to always feel we had good things in our lives that would not be taken away from us by economic downturns. God does provide in many and various ways.

Second, God urges us on to the rest of our lives in ways that only God can. Think you can find a nice, safe hole to crawl into, one in which God will never find you? Maybe for some length of time, but not usually forever. Crawling into a hole means you have seen the light of day long enough to realize a step forward is indicated. Hiding, pretending we are not ready for what God has in store for us, only takes time away from what can be, from what we were created to be.

Occasionally, I've heard grown ups, people who have been blessed to have a faith perspective their whole lives, say they attend a particular church because it's a place that "gets back to the basics." To say that attitude confuses me is an understatement. I have asked one or two of these dear souls how their faith informs their lives, only to be met by a confused stare. My understanding is that their beliefs have not kept up with their ability to quote scripture, and they have numbed themselves to hearing God's voice and feeling God's nudging, loving spirit. Of course they are not lost forever, but they have dug themselves a very deep home, one that may take some time and experience out of which to pull themselves.

Third, God is patent as we dig ourselves out of the holes we all inevitably dig for ourselves, always hoping more for us than we ever hope for ourselves. God has a whole lot of paper cups available for us, some to grow out of and some to grow into. The fitting rooms for trying them on are quite spacious, too, and have very forgiving mirrors.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 3:48 PM 0 comments

Coming Home

Travelocity.com and I are becoming intimately acquainted on my diligent quest for flights home sometime in the next few months. Many other state tourism bureaus clam the title "God's Country" for their neck of the woods, but Wisconsin's Door Peninsula, where I grew up, is surely the place God rested on the seventh day. What better place to enjoy the land, water, fresh air, sunshine and homemade ice cream after six long days of constant creative activity? I once told a friend that I thought the whole world would be as beautiful as this place. She laughed, saying I must have been quite disappointed on discovering that wasn't the case.

Perhaps.

Something else to consider is whether or not we can ever go home, at least to whatever imagination holds, together with our heart, soul and memory, as being that perfect place in which we believe we feel most comfortable, most ourselves. That definition could easily describe an entirely different place than the physical boundaries our of which we found our way to adulthood. It's a fair question to ask ourselves: How do we think about home? All the implications contained in the answer each of us comes to inform the rest of our lives.

Having just celebrated my fiftieth last week, I am also living my jubilee year, something the Biblical book of Leviticus tells us is hallowed, a special time of reflection, reorganization and renewal. Another part of the jubilee story is that this is the time in our lives in which we find ourselves going to the land that God is giving us. Jubilee is not only a time to kick back, smell the roses and drink very old, very good Scotch. There is also some deeply felt movement in our souls that requires paying attention in new ways so as not to miss the next steps of the journey. For myself, I am not sure where the land is that God is giving me, anymore than I feel fully comfortable calling where I grew up home.

Is this uncertainty about home also a Biblical tradition, a sacred trust handed down to us through the named and nameless faithful ones preceding us? How did Adam and Eve feel after they were booted from Eden? What was their next address? Did they long for the only home they had ever known? I think of them, and I think of the Israelites wandering the desert for forty years, feeling a sense of kinship, an understanding of that confused, rootless state in which I have found myself each time I have moved. Excitement only carries me so far, and then I must find new places to grocery shop, get my hair cut and my teeth cleaned.

And what of Jesus' life? The Gospels don't mention his desire to find a good chiropractor while he was on the road working those three years, but they do mention that he stayed wherever he was welcomed. My guess is that translated into some pretty interesting accommodations, some of which he probably never mentioned to his mother. But he appears to have appreciated the hospitality of friends and strangers alike, those who had permanent pillows on which to lay their heads each night and who understood the needs of those who did not enjoy the same luxury. Sometimes home is carried for us by compassionate souls until we can find our way back there for ourselves.

Perhaps home isn't so much a physical place as much as it is how we find our way though life. If that is so, we are always coming home and God welcomes us, not as a treasured guest, but as family. Knowing that one basic truth is what carries us.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 2:14 PM 0 comments