Only Hope

I got to thinking, after my last post, about something I wrote last year... Some of you have read it, some have not.  I have read it a thousand times, and I think it's one of my favorites.

In gratitude...Only Hope.

I can hear the rain filling already full puddles in the streets.  I can see the new spring leaves on the trees, hungry for the moisture, licking it out of mid air, depending on it, yearning for more; the Elm pushes its roots deeper into the Earth, securing it’s soul’s place, comfortably strong.  I envy the trees.

There’s a story inside of my soul, one I try to write over, and over again.  Too many days, there are no words to fill the empty sentences and pages unturned.  It churns in my belly, and eats at the edges of my nerves.  Questions haunt me like a lonely ghost knocking on the doors of places I’ve only seen in my dreams.   I seem to be locked inside my own prison, fighting myself as my own worst enemy, and I am running out strength.  My own thoughts escape as I grasp at answers.  There’s a lifeline, a rope of faith and belief slipping so quickly from my grip, my hands burn with friction and tension tugging at my very core.  If I get to the end...

My head is so full, it feels to heavy for my body.  I have tried more times than I can count to stop the worry, to stop the discontent, to stop...just stop.  So I lay my head gently down, and let the sound of the Earth fill my ears.  Even the birds have quieted in the cleansing rain, or maybe, like me, their heads are full, and it’s time to just stop – just for a moment. 

If I was a religious woman, this is the point, I suppose, that I would turn to Jesus and ask for mercy and beg for answers.  I would ramble out whys and questions I already know the answers to, making false promises for salvation from own punishment, but I am not.  I am, however, a woman of faith, and of hope, and of believing that no matter how consumed we are by the day, the sun will always rise up, and we will, inevitably put one foot in front of the other, and carry on.   I will not ask Jesus to be my solution.  I will only give gratitude to the Earth and what it has given to me, raise my chin in the light of a God that is gentle, loving and unconditional, and pray for the wisdom to be not only what others need, but for what I need in myself. 

I lay my head back down, and I lift my hands and pray.... you, are my only hope.

There is a lot to be said for the simple solace of carrying on.  One foot in front of the other, do it again, start over, or just keep doing what you’re doing, either way, as long as your feet are moving in the right direction, and you are looking forward, we have no choice but to move in the direction we are looking.   And so I did. One foot in front of the other, eyes on the horizon.   Earth beneath me, sky above me, a balance of power I seek within my own soul. 

I watched as the last drops of rain fell from the sky. I surveyed the landscape; flowers closed, busy insects sheltered away from the showers, animals and humans hidden from the nourishment of the skies, quiet.  On the side of the house, the flowers lay flat from the rain, defeated and trampled.  I ran my hand over pedals and stems, encouraging them, gently, to get back up.  Soon the light would shine, and we could all get back up...

Sing to me the songs of stars, of your galaxy dancing and laughing again.  When my dreams seem so far, sing to me all the plans that you have for me over and over again...

 It caught my eye, as I turned away from the flattened life; the twisted strength of the vine that curled towards the sky despite the efforts of a harsh element.  Rising like a phoenix from the ashes, a picture from my own soul, filled with hope, and belief, a clematis flower, wide and wild with color, reaching out, reaching up.  Bursting from the Earth, unharnessed with life, refusing to be the damage that fell from someone else’s suggestion, that vine was my new rope of life line – my new hope for today.

To the Earth, I give unto you, my destiny.  I’m giving you all of me, and when it all seems too much, I will lay my head gently down, lift my hands and pray, for you are my only hope. 

And so I sit, with a story to write in my soul, and I write it over and over again, wondering endlessly of who can read the words on my page...