Praytell

Friday, October 30, 2009

Asuncion, Paraguay

It is fall in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  By now I suspect most of the trees have lost their leaves.

It is spring in Asuncion, Paraguay.  By now, many of the trees have lost their blossoms but they are still finding their leaves in this city of trees.

One can’t help but notice them.

I turn down an alley and notice, right there, in the very middle of the alley, a giant mango tree.  The cobblestone alley leads right to it, then splits to go around it, and then rejoins on the other side to lead away from it.

A city planner somehow decided to leave it right where it was.

A construction crew decided to leave it right where it was.

The neighbors decided it should stay.

It would have been so much more efficient to just cut it down.  Any sensible traffic engineer would have removed it in the sane of safety, efficiency, and progress.

But the tree said, “I’m staying.”  And so it stayed.

Twenty miles outside of the city, in a village whose name in Guarani means “Beautiful Morning” there is also a mango right in the middle of the road.  I saw the horses pulling the garbage cart go around it.  I saw the kids leaving school go around it.  I saw a late middle-aged woman walk beneath it and jump up to grab a small mango.  She got it on the first try.

“Is there a tradition here to keep trees in the middle of the road?” I asked.

“No,” came the answer.

“No folklore or anything?”

“No.”

“But in America there is no way these trees would have been left.  I’m sure of that.”

“There is a road in Asuncion that once had many mangos, but they widened the road and cut them all down.  The neighborhood protested, and protested, and protested, but they lost.”

“That’s the way it is back home,” I said.

Trees.

Thank God for trees.  In churches there are always a core of people our children once referred to as “trees.”  They provide shade.  They are strong, steady and reliable.  Trees.

I have not found a place to paint here . . . but there are so many paintings that have made their way to my heart.  And so many stories of trees in the middle of the road, and trees that frame the park and the other side of the river that separates Paraguay from Argentina.

When I’m back home, I wonder if there is an alliance of trees that understands when the trees say, “I’m here,” and “Let me frame hope.”

I suspect there is.

And I suspect we need a lot more of them.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Asuncion, Paraguay

I do not speak Spanish.

When I try to speak it just a bit I keep breaking into French, assuming that since it is also a Romance language all will be well.  It’s a nice idea, but it has yet to work.  And so I do as best I can, and end up reading emotions and looking for an occasional word of understanding.  I do not know exactly what kind of tree it is that drops its purple blossoms on the playground, but I appreciate its language as the sunlight streams across the red sand.  It is emotional translation.

And so it was at a meeting with the secretary of Health for the district of Asuncion, the most populous district in Paraguay.  Paul, who spent three years launching Maestra which brought health services to government clinics that had some rudamentary medicines but no medical care, had called her and she agreed to the meeting.  It would be important, because, for whatever reason, the program came to an end.  Chalk it up to misunderstanding if one is charitable, or turf battles if one is less than charitable.  Either way, the end is the same.

But the doctor, the receptionist and the nurse decided that what they began would continue to serve those who had nowhere else to go.  And so they incorporated.  I saw the papers.  Five pages of very legal looking papers.  And they opened an account with a micro-lending bank.  And they were ready to roll.  They weren’t asking for pay, they were just asking for the medications the government had once supplied, and perhaps some gas money, I don’t know.  As I said, I don’t speak Spanish.

The meeting went well, as all meetings do, for the first few seconds.  But then the tone changed.  There were problems.  I didn’t know what.  And I didn’t know if they were true.  But something was amiss.  It wasn’t a small snag.  The line was about to break.  This I knew.

Suddenly the receptionist spoke.  I don’t know what she said.  As I said, I don’t speak Spanish.  But she spoke with passion, with intensity, with clarity and utterly without apology or shame.  There was dignity in her words.  It was, perhaps, as though a teacher, a caring teacher, had asked for her homework and instead of hanging her head in shame and saying, “I didn’t do it,” the student could say, “I’ve already turned it in.”  Each word spoken was received.

Then the doctor spoke.  She was not careful, but caring in what she said.  She spoke with authority that is born of truth and compassion.  She spoke as physicians speak when the topic is difficult but needs to be embraced.  She did not speak for long.  She did not have to.  Every word was received.

And then the nurse spoke.  I don’t know what she said.  As you know, I do not speak Spanish.  Her words were the words of a nurse.  Their tone matched the tone I heard the nurse use when she greets patients who have come for their meds, come to see the doctor, come to see if their child is going to be okay and if all is well with the pregnancy.

And then Paul spoke.

I do not speak Spanish but I knew what he said.  The past is the past.  Maestra is over.  Phoenix is now here.

The tide turned.

In a moment the tide turned.  The secretary had said what she needed to say, indeed what she should have said given what she thought was true.  But she saw a new day at hand.

I said, in English, that I would do whatever I could with the gift of a pen to bless her work, that I had done so in Romania, Lithuania, Russia, and writing about health all over the world.  In an instant she produced one, two, three, four, five, six reports showing what her department was doing.  It was impressive.  The figures were impressive.  All those statistics.

“They need a story,” I said.

“Come,” she said.  We all stood up from the table and crossed the red driveway to a large warehouse full of medicines for the people of Paraguay.

A contract would be signed.

I understood perhaps 25 words in Spanish during the entire morning.  But it is emotional language that tells the story.

And it is a story of hope.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Asuncion, Paraguay

I was in Duluth, Minnesota for a mission conference.  For years I had been corresponding with missionaries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and in each case I found a story with purpose, compassion, and an understanding that there is lots of mending to do in our torn and troubled world.

But the first person to speak was angry.  Were I to paraphrase what he said in a tone of icy judgement was something like this:

“Missionaries are evil.  The church is evil.  All it does is destroy people and cultures by taking them over.  It always has and it always will.  Just look at history.  How many people did the church kill in order to save them?  What were the crusades?  The would would be better off if there were no church.  You are culpable.  And you don’t even know it.”

He was, of course, right.  We have good reason to be ashamed of inquisitions, cultural arrogance, the destruction of culture in the name of Christianity.  To deny this is impossible, just as it is impossible to deny the American genocide that killed, moved and then restricted Native Americans.  He was right.

But sometimes one can be so right one is wrong.

This was going through my mind as I stretched out on a bench in the shade of a tree at one of the clinics.  Above me the leaves rustled just a bit in the Paraguayan breeze.  To my side, I heard soft conversations in the clinic.  I was tired.  We had been travelling all day, and had walked mile or so up and back the village’s red road.  The bench said, “Come here and rest.”  And so I did.

Thinking about “mission” sleep came my way.  I was recalling stories of missionaries.   Jim, who in Lesotho worked with a village to rebuild its school and community center after it had been burnt.  John, who saw the “parachuistas,” the poor who having no land and no home just “appear” and turn a field into a community.  “Good for them,” he said.   He would get to know his new neighbors.  George who always kept money on the dashboard to give to the street children who thread the traffic to wash windows.  Crispin who saw a body on the road as we drove across the mountains of Jamaica, and turned the car around to see if the naked man was okay.  Who knows what had happened to him.  They spoke, in Patois they spoke.  Assured, we drove on.  I wondered how many others would have stopped, much less left the car and spoken to the man.

Mission.

When I awoke the voices were still there.  The leaves were still moving, just a bit.  The shade was still cool.  Healing had once again found its place, and mission one of its threads.

Paul said I was snoring during my nap.  I am sure this is a lie because I have no such recollection.

I only know I awoke refreshed and eager to see there the road known as mission will lead.

The Red Road of Healing

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Asuncion, Paraguay

The roads were red.

Sometimes they were red sand.  When it rains, they become red rivers that cut into the soil, even where stones have been pounded by hand into the sand to make a sort of pavement.

Along the way there are piles of red stone waiting to be pounded into pieces not with a machine, but with a sledge hammer.  And then, piece by piece, they are pounded into the road and begin their wait for a rain heavy enough to move them a bit.

The road had no name to speak of.  But the clinic had a sign with the name of the village that stretched along the dirt road.  Canadita it read.  And then the key word, “Salut.”  The clinic is one of eleven or so that the Phoenix program now works with.  The clinic was always there, but it was simply a dispensary where government subsidized medicines are sold to those who live along these roads.  When Paul Jacquay and Marianne Shomaker came to Paraguay, they wondered if it would be possible to provide a physician and some nurses in these locations.  Seemed like a good idea.  So it happened.  The government was pleased.  The mission for which they worked was pleased.  The denominational executives had good reason to be pleased.

But then life happens.  Without casting blame . . . does it do any good to blame snags when one is fishing for life?   . . . it came to an end.  Paul and Marianne returned to the states.  But the three staff who staffed those clinics along the red roads of Paraguay, decided to endure.  And endure they did.  The word “endurance” has a twin.  It’s name is sacrifice.

And so, without pay, they drove the rural roads.  The doctor’s sister said she would take care of the doctor’s child because the doctor could no longer afford child care.  To endure is to sacrifice.

There is no trace of this stress at the Canadita’s health clinic.  The people walk down the road, sit on a bench beneath a shade tree, and then walk into the clinic where the receptionist greets them kindly, the nurse asks how they are doing, and the doctor takes out her stethoscope.  Mothers bring their little ones.  Pregnant women wait in line to make sure everything is fine.

For three hours, the clinic is open.  When it is time to close, there is no need to shoo people away.  Everyone knows when it closes, and the afternoon has grown hot.  It’s time to head home.  Groups of school kids kick a soccer ball down the road, trying to steal it from each other.  The chickens get out of the way.  At the small house, with its bright laundry, the cows have moved to the shade.

We leave.

There is another clinic, this one open a bit later.  It also has the pharmacy it always did have.  But today it also has a receptionist, a nurse, and a physician.  There too there are benches in the shade.  There too there is no pushing, no josteling.  There too the clients know each other, and there too they are known by the doctor, the receptionist and the nurse.

It is a good thing.

Healing always is.

Lapacha

Monday, October 26, 2009

Asuncion, Paraguay

By just two or three weeks, we missed the spring days when all the trees were in blossom, and the air in this city of trees was fragrant.  But no matter.  Some are still in blossom, a bit past their time.  The violet lapachas with their dark black trunks are still in sight here and there, and every glimpse makes us linger.

A mourning dove, or one of its cousins, awoke me at five this morning.  It was light by five-thirty.  A cup of coffee on the porch was blessed by how many species of birds hopping from one branch to another, looking around, and then deciding another branch would be better.  A slice of Paraguayan cheese, good not for its taste but for its texture.  A thin spread of caramel on top made it irresistable.  An hour later a warm chipa the Paraguayan speciality.  And then another cup of coffee, and then, paints.

I feel like the tin man, still recouping after the trip here, and am taking today and perhaps tomorrow “off” to just rest.  It wasn’t long ago such a trip would have been ill-advised by all advisors with the possible exception of the Spirit that leads us all into improbable places.

In these places we renew that which we did not know needed renewing.  It may be purpose.  It may even be loving defiance.  On my first two trips to Paraguay we brought physicians who did what they could to heal those who had little or no access to healing.  Then Paul, a physicians assistant in my church came and decided to make the jump.  He and Marianne spent three years setting up clinics, seven of them, to work with the homeless and poor here in Asuncion.  All went well, until it didn’t.  Promised money never came.  He blew the whistle and was punished.  The nurses he trained to work with him decided they would “go it’ on their own.  An immense amount of work followed.

It is the work of connection.  And it is the ministry of doing something when connections are broken.  I may not have resources, but I do have an open heart and an imagination that both gets me into trouble, thank heavens, and finds solutions.  The nurses were rejected by the major banks because they were too poor.  It occurred to me that there are microbanks all over the world set up to work with the poor.  Why not call them?  We did.  They said, “come over.”  Problem solved.

It will take me two or three days to recover from the trip.  But it is a sweet recovery.  The colors of this city, the deep green of its trees, forests that do not dread winter, people gathering just to be together, nurses working without pay just to heal, and recognition that Paraguay is up against the same problems as we are–the new president has an idea, the congress says, “Forget it.”  Forests are cleared for soybeans which produce gas instead of feeding people.

In all the world we’re “up against it.”

And in all the world there is beauty.

And in all the world, a chance for recovery known as healing.

Family Tree Vision

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The truth is in the story.

This is always the case when the story is simple.  What’s intriguing is that it is also the case when the story of complex.

There is nothing quite as complex as a church coming up with a “vision statement.”  We know what we are supposed to do.  We are supposed to serve, to sing, to break bread, to heal the world, to care for others even when we don’t like them if the truth be told, and to “be church.”  We know we supposed to tend to spiritual matters, that we are to heed the Spirit’s lead and follow in the steps of Jesus.  We know all this.  But putting it into a single vision statement is easier said than done.  In fact, it seems to abide in the domain of church specialists who, upon seeing churches trying to weather whatever storm has unexpectedly appeared, or perhaps even the same storm the congregation has weathered for generations, are apt to say, “You need a vision statement.  It is, of course, an exercise in coherence.  If we could only not be distacted from our true mission.  If we could only say it in a single sentence, perhaps all will be well.  I need to disclose that I am wary of such an approach.  To my inner ear, it sounds more like marketing than living.  Just because Nike can say, “Just do it,” do churches actually need such an approach?

It’s not that I am against vision statements.  It’s just that most of the time I don’t see them as a solution.  Those that I appreciate tend to be just two or three words.  I’m thinking of the church that decided to spend a decade or so carefully thinking about he word “hospitality.”  They were, of course, a friendly church.  But they weren’t growing.  They weren’t changing.  And so the congregation decided to figure out what hospitality meant.

At first it meant thinking about the homeless men and women who gathered on the sidewalks not far from the church.  Then it mean wondering what hospitality might mean to those who had fled El Salvador’s violence.  Should they become a sanctuary church?  Then they wondered about what it might mean if they provided hospitality to those who had been rejected from other churches.  First thing they knew, over a period of years, the walls of nationality had become porous; they found new neighbors when they took “neighbor” as a verb instead of a noun; they realized that exclusivity based on sexual preference did not reflect Christ’s uncanny knack for extending hospitality to all.  And so the single word vision statement actually “worked.”

I suspect it worked because it didn’t try to solve a problem.  Instead, it tried to explore a possibility.  I like that.  I respect that.  I have high hopes for such a venture.

I will be far away when our congregation spends a day visioning its future with the guidance of a specialist.  I hope it goes well.  Were it up to me, I’d probably go with the “almost sacrament” that seems to bless any church that takes it to heard:

“Mutual conversation and consolation.”

The conversation?  What’s up?  Let’s talk.

The consolation?  We live in a torn and troubled world, but be of good cheer.  Comfort the afflicted, strengthen the faint-hearted, and let

And so, on this eve of a departure, may the mutual conversation and consolation between us and the God of life continue to both bless and change us.
Larry

October, 21, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

As you know, I’ve been told by my book reviewers that I’m hard on neurologists.  I heard it again today.  I know it is true.  And I know my criticism is often unwarranted.  There are good pastors, and bad pastors; good accountants, and crooks; “good” neurologists and bad ones.    Every profession has its collection of those who care and those who use their power to enrich themselves and neglect our fundamental call to heal.  Sweeping indictments are the stuff of prejudice.  We must be careful when we use them.

But I am caught on an idea.  The idea is that healing has something to do with life.  The idea is that life matters.  The idea is that what we “do” with the implications of our scientific diagnoses is more important than the diagnoses themselves.

Are you epileptic?  Talk with me about life.  Inform me about life.

Are you suffering from dementia?  Talk with me about life.  Inform me about life.

Have you had a stroke?  How have you changed?  What will you now do with that change?  Can it bless others?  Will it bless others?

Are you obese?  Talk with me about life, not pounds.  What is it you want to do?  Who is it you want to be?  How would you author your story?

I am caught on these ideas.

When the neurologist never bothered to return after my father was deemed to be “okay,” I was not surprised.  He was concerned about one thing–and one thing only.  A diagnosis. When CAT scans and MRIs showed my dad hadn’t had a stroke, their relationship ended.  It didn’t matter how the incident affected my father’s life, my mother’s life, or our life as a family.  None of that mattered.  So there was no reason for the neurologists to appear.  He who ordered $10,000 worth of tests was suddenly off the hook.

Our case was “over.”

But our lives were not.  Believe it or not, they continued.

I drove home from the hospital with my mon and dad.  I decided they needed some provisions for a seemingly empty fridge.  So I stopped at a store, and bought some Honey Crisp Apples (oh my, try them!), some carrots, some bread, a pound of ground beef, a block of Swiss Cheese, a bottle of red wine, and some Canadian bacon.  That would at least hold them fast for a few days.

And then we drove to their building.  It is a long walk from the elevatore to their apartment.  A very long walk.  When my dad and I made our way that way on Saturday morning, every step was halting, and without my presence he would not have made it.

Not so this time.

The elevator arrived at the sixth floor.  My mother stepped off the elevator.  So did my dad.  Within seconds, they were arm in arm.  I watched them from a few steps behind.

I am a writer, but there are no words to express the love I saw in their walk down that long hallway.  They were, newly weds, comforting each other.  They were brave, heading back home after a storm.  They were together.  They knew excactly how to hold each other, exactly how to console each other, exactly how to walk together to the apartment they now call home.

It was a sacrament in motion.  The sacrament is Mutual Conversation and Consolation.  The Lutherans considered it a sacrament, a matter of grace.  I am ever so grateful to them for this insight that helps so much.  In my parent’s walk down the long hallway of life, I saw mutual conversation and consolation.  It was beautiful, to use Alan Paton’s words, “beyond any singing of it.”

So, I’m not much on neurologists until they too begin to sing.  I have nothing against them save their orientation to the emperical at the expense of the intangible: the walk of two 90-year olds down a long hallway on their way home.  It was a healing walk far removed from the off-setting realm of diagnosis.

Yes, I’m hard on neurologists.  Mea culpa.

Based on what I’ve seen and gleaned from life,  I’ll go with relational healing any day of the week.

With love,

Larry

Monday, October 19, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

It is both troubling and dangerous when one’s suspicions are confirmed.  It leads us to say, “Told you so.”  Once we’ve done that, we have somehow assumed that we actually know the truth.  There is no better way to be led astray.

And so I approach today’s column with certain wariness.

We are in the review process of my book about the spiritual implications of stroke and traumatic brain injury.  The book will be out in January, 2010, with the title, “Over My Head.”  I wrote after two strokes very nearly swept my life away.  In their wake, I changed; my relationships with others changed; and God disappeared and then reappeared in a new way.  There is not a church in the world who has not had a member who, in the blink of an eye, suddenly “changed” when a stroke came his or her way.  For them too, perceptions of self, others, and God  changed.  But not much has been written about the recovery of spiritual life.  And so, this book is for the young people returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injury, for the churches who want to care as best they can for the choir member who sang tenor at last night’s rehearsal, and is now unable to speak.

One of the reviewers said, “He is hard on neurologists.”

That is true.

I am hard on them.  My experience with them is daunting, to say the least.  Part of that comes from modern medicine’s false set of expectations.  After my general physician did all he could,  I believed that a visit to a “specialist,” indeed, a “neurologist,” would lead to a “cure.”

Needless to say, it neither could nor did.  Neurologists focused on diagnosis.  But they seemed to not care at all for how patients live out the implications of their diagnosis.  Or so it seemed to me.

My suspicions were confirmed this weekend.  My father, aged 90, and a day after my mother’s 90th birthday, was suddenly unable to move.  The nurses urged us to take him to Urgent Care.  We did.  They said he needed to go to the Emergency Room at the University of Wisconsin Hospital.  He had been a professor there for more than 30 years.

The first nurse to meet us was adept, responsive, caring, and beautiful in every sense of the word.  The second was the same.  She also treated my dad like a human being.  For a moment a doctor arrived, and sat beside my dad and gently talked with him.  His manner was caring, curious, and calming.

But then the neurologist arrived.  Suddenly, my father was turned into a puppet.  The neurologist held my dad’s arm.  “Push against me,” he barked.  My father didn’t.  He hadn’t understood.  Perhaps it was the accent.  But I believe it was his spirit.
“No, RESIST me!” commanded the neurologist.  My father did.  “Fine,” said the neurologist.  He went on to another test.  Once again my father misunderstood.  The neurologist became a bit upset.”

“NO, he said.  “Push AGAINST me.”

And then the said, “Fine.”

At no point did he bother to explain what he was looking for, why he wanted my father to resist him, what muscle weakness might indicate.  It was all I could do to not jump in and stop the process.  But I didn’t.  Such is the power of our post-modern medical thinking.  It disables us from what we know to be true.

The neurologist left.  He did so asking for yet another test.  The CAT scan wouldn’t be enough.  Dad needed an MRI.  The neurologist, of course, would not pay for it.  Indeed, he would be paid to order it just to “make sure.”  He said he would return.  He didn’t.  He fell in line with the string of neurologists I have known.  For them, diagnosis is the key.  There is nothing to be done after a stroke occurs, after the IED explodes and the brain is insured.  At that point, they tend to give up.

Now I know that’s not true.  There are good neurologists and not-so-good neurologists, just as there are good pastors and not-so-good pastors.  To generalize is foolish.

And I know my personal experience is limited.

But there, in the University of Wisconsin Hospital, I saw my father turned into a puppet.

My prayer for my father is simple.  We need to find a Family Physician who loves him, cares for him, understands him, appreciates him, and will minister to him when health events occur as they tend to do when one is 90.

Nothing could be  more important.

Without trust there can be no healing.

It is as simple as that.

I apologize to whatever national associations of neurologists there may be.  I’m sure you care.

But I’ll tell you what.  The lives of patients matter . . . not just their nerves.

Amen.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Not to be Measured

It is a 600 mile drive from the City of Lakes to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Along the way there are all kind of measurements.

The Interstate relentlessly lets you know if you are at mile post 245, 246, 247 or at 301, 302, 303.  Green signs appear from time to time saying you are now 65 miles away from Mitchell, 250 miles away from Sioux Falls, or 45 miles away from Murdo.

In the beautiful expanses of southwest Minnesota towns are six miles apart.  New Holland is six miles away from Ruthton.  Water stops for the railroads were six miles apart.  And six miles, some say, was a reasonable horse and buggy ride away.

And of course there were signs.  Billboards to be exact.  Whatever zoning or advertising laws there are in Minnesota must not exist in South Dakota.  Suddenly every motel wants you to know exactly how far away you are from their parking lot.  Al wants you to know you are just a few miles away from a five cent cup of coffee.  Murdo lets you know you are not far away from the World Famous Car Museum.  And Wall Drug, covered in the International Herald Tribune, has signs every step of the way.  It is a world full of numbers.

But that changes in the Badlands.

There are virtually no signs.  Nothing comes between you and the horizon.  I have been to the Badlands in summer, and found it too clogged with cars to thrill my soul.  But last week, it was windy, cold, and snowy.  I saw maybe half a dozen cars in the entire hour and a half drive through the park.

The clouds were gray with white streaks, the thin line of hills along the horizon was blue, almost blending into the grays.  The land was either gold or light tan, or light gray, depending on the erosion, the light, the grass, the sage, the soil.  There was nothing to measure.

The space rinsed my soul.

Back on the road I wondered if I might write the South Dakota Department of Commerce about the signs, the numbers, the broken horizons.  “Please,” I’d say.

It wouldn’t make a difference.

But it doesn’t matter.

Its the space that stays with me.  In the end, the signs will never win.

Around the Bend

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thirty years ago I applied for a job.

Thinking back on it, I realize I did so because it seemed to be the thing to do.  After all, leadership is sequential, or so I thought.  And so I applied.  And lost the bid.

To say I was devastated would not be the truth.  To say it was a relief was also not the truth.  The truth was somewhere in between.  Most of all, my heart and spirit seemed to say, “Something else, somewhere else.”

One of the men who voted perhaps more for “something else” than against me, came over to the house.  I was picking strawberries in the back yard, wondering if my efforts to make soil from Maine’s rocky earth might bear fruit.  He could not have been more gracious.  I thanked him, and he handed me a book.  It’s title was, “Round the Bend.”

I thanked him again.  Put the book on my shelf, but did not read it.  I guess the sense of loss, and the need for detachment, was greater than I thought.  But over the years, that title has come to mind a thousand times.  It is, of course, about hope.

Hope is always “around the bend.”  The moment we count it a victory we need it all the more.

Hope always says, “I’m just around the bend.”

It does, however, require attention.  At last week’s retreat, the dance teacher said that he spends a great deal of time working to be in the presence of people who inspire him, nurture, him, and point him away from despair.  It is so viscerally important to part of a church, a company or a neighborhood that does that.  And it takes work.  It calls for a certain mindfulness.  Retreat participants in their 80’s and even 90’s, said, “I wait all year for this.”  Just knowing the Recreation Leadership Lab will happen each October, is enough for them.

And so a Maine story comes to mind.

A group of students and I were rowing down the coast of Maine in a dory.  We “put in”  in Port Clyde, and tied our dories to the pier.   Then we headed for the five and dime store.  It was, after all,  a time to relax.  A time to find a real bathroom.  A time to swig a soda.  Three or so hours later we returned to the pier.

How shocked we were to see the dory hanging at a 60 degree angle from the pier.  In our absence, the tide had flowed out.  Once that happened our rope was too short.  It could handle a dory four feet away, but not one 12 feet away.  Without slack in the line, the boat had no choice but to let the aft sink and the bow remain pinned to the pier.

I had forgotten about the tide.

I hadn’t tended to the rope.

I hadn’t thought about what might happen.

As it is with dories along the Maine coast, so it is with hope.  We must remember it, tend to it, nurture it, pay attention to it.  If we don’t, we’ll find hope’s sea level has fallen twelve feet and our lives are suspended from the pier.

Message?

Hope is around the bend.

Prepare for it.

Tend to it.

Take care of it.

In this way we honor nothing less than life itself.