Hope Dances

 More encouragement this week from the backyard...

Hope Dances

Dove chases dove,

squirrel chases squirrel

in nature's dance.

Oak leaf hydrangeas in bloom.

Bluebirds build a second nest.

Hope is not done yet.

 

                                 ~ CK

____________

Photos by Charles Kinnaird

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Saturday Haiku: Living in the World

to live in the world
is to have profound sadness
along with glad hope

 

____________________

Photo by Serhii Nemyrivskyi

(Getty Images)

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Bumblebees - for a Likely Tomorrow

       Grateful for sister bee

       who pollinates field and flower

       making the next season likely

       and giving hope for tomorrow.

 

_________________________

Videography by Charles Kinnaird

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Saturday Haiku: Hope

Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images

seeking signs of life
hope, the last thing that is lost,
strengthens those who search

__________________

Photo from CNN: Search and Rescue teams look for possible survivors in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida.

On CNN's June 26 coverage of the collapsed condominium, correspondent Nick Valencia said, "If hope is the last thing that is lost, there is plenty of it here outside the Surfside community center." There are "poetry prompts" and then there are poetic attempts to speak to tragedy. The CNN reporter's phrase could lend itself to a number of poetic responses. 

A quick google search revealed that the phrase is from an Italian proverb, "Hope is the last thing ever lost." This week's haiku was written in response to the news.

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A Nation's Hope

On Inauguration Day, 2017, I began a series of journalistic poetry that I called, “Bearing Witness to the Times.” With that first poem, I spoke of how we can find hope. Today I still think that this is how we find our way back home.

When Hope Is Set in Stone

(Thoughts on inauguration day)

Photo by Martin Child / Robert Harding

(Getty Images)

We put our heroes in marble

Thinking we give them honor

When in fact

We do it for ourselves.

Having learned that we can so quickly

Misplace our values

Or set aside our highest ideals,

We chisel from the stone –

Or cast in bronze –

Those images we admire.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial (Wikipedia photo)

    
        Justice and wisdom
        Come through those marble faces,

        As do fidelity and compassion –

        Because our own hands

        Carved them 

        While we were delighting

        In our better angels.

Martin Luther King Memorial
Photo by Alan Kkotok

Marble faces and bronze statues

Look out on our parades

Whether we march in hope

Or walk in fear and hatred.

If we stop to look back

Into their unchanging eyes

There is a chance

We might remember

Why we set those ideals in polished rock.

Perhaps we will recall

Those better days

When we etched our hopes in stone.

                                 ~ Charles Kinnaird

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A Maundy Thursday Prayer for the Notre Dame Cathedral

(Associated Press photo)

Prayer for the Notre Dame Cathedral

Our Lady graces many chapels throughout the world, often as a nook off to the side where she draws in the seeker who has become weary from the crush of the world. She also comes in grandeur, calling to our highest hopes and aspirations, as on the River Seine in Paris where that ancient cathedral stands shattered and smoldering from devastating fire.

Many stood to weep and to sing hymns of devotion even as the flames continued to rise. We join our hearts with the people of that ancient city who feel immeasurable loss. We join hands with the people of that ancient faith, many of whom have come in recent years to see their Church shattered as well. 

May Our Lady instill in all of us the courage to rebuild this ancient and sacred space to speak beauty and hope to all the world.

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Respite in Nature

Oak leaf hydrangeas (can you spot St. Francis?)

It is the natural world that gives me hope for the future and comfort in the present. With so much turmoil in politics and in the news cycle, I find my own peace and renewal in nature. Though I live in an urban neighborhood, I like the presence of parks nearby and a vibrant creek in walking distance (I catch sight of a blue heron down there on occasion). My wife and I try to keep nature as close as possible by planting things in the yard to create a “sacred space,” attracting birds and butterflies and keeping us in touch our living planet.

Indeed, it is our natural environment that is our hope and our sustenance. Though care for the environment has become yet another political struggle, may we ever more seek to preserve the earth that sustains us. 

Last week, I took some measures of encouragement by stopping to listen to the natural world from my own doorstep. I shared one of those moments Saturday with the haiku, “Forest Rain.”

The other two events were documented in short poems as well:

Watching Squirrels

Sitting on my front porch

I watch the squirrels

As they scurry around the telephone pole.

They are fatter this year –

A sign of abundance

In the neighborhood.

         *    *    *

Two signs of hope

Up in the trees along my street

I hear two barred owls calling,

“Who cooks for you!”

And the possum on his itinerant rounds

Makes a front porch visit

To the offering of fruit.

5/21/18                  ~CK

May we continue to find hope each day as we nurture this vibrant and fragile earth.

Trees in the ally for a natural space

Four oclocks and lilies

Lilies with birdbath

__________________

Photos by Charles Kinnaird

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Finding Christmas

I enjoy the Christmas season and when I discovered the liturgical season of Advent as an adult, that sacred time of waiting gave the season even more meaning for me. At the same time, I realize that there are many who have difficulty participating in the festive season. Some have painful memories from the past; some have been hardened by life and cannot make their way back to hope. Others have either lost faith, were nurtured in a different faith, or were raised without a strong faith tradition.

My hope is that everyone can find reason to celebrate the season and that we all can have hope for the days ahead. The following essay is one that was first posted in December of 2010. It was first written and presented at the request of Rev. Karen Matteson, a Unitarian Minister. She wanted me to take part in a Sunday morning service in preparation for Christmas. Many in that Unitarian congregation felt that it was very important to have a big Christmas Eve celebration. Others had a problem with Christmas because they came from different backgrounds, and most had a problem with affirming the divinity of Christ. The minister wanted to have a service to help bring everyone in to the celebration of the season while acknowledging the different places that many were coming from. "Finding Christmas" was my contribution to that service which I was honored to take part in.

   Finding Christmas: A Post-modern Christian Revisits an Ancient Holiday

by Charles Kinnaird

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me 

                                            there lay an invincible summer."

                                                   ~Albert Camus

In the Jesus story, the Gospel writer at one point has the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, asking the question, "What am I to do with Jesus?" It is fascinating to me that from that time until this, most of us in Western Civilization have had to ask that very question and in some way respond to the question. When I was in high school, there were two Broadway musicals, Godspell, and Jesus Christ, Superstar, that represented one way that my generation was responding to the question of what to do with Jesus. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, Handel's Messiah, Zulu Zionism in South Africa, Base Communities in Latin America, and the Jesus Seminar in Santa Rosa, CA, represent a few of the many varied responses to the same question.

In my own journey, I am always re-evaluating and redefining. I took a computer course once where we were working with spreadsheets. I loved the visual effect of having the spreadsheet all laid out, then typing in another number and watching the whole screen change in response to the new data. A living philosophy has to be that way. When we are confronted with new information or new experiences, our perspective will change in some way. There may even be a shift in our world view.

The Risk of Incarnation

A few years ago, I was attending a Eucharistic service at an Episcopal Church (some traditions refer to it as Mass, or Holy Communion). It was at a time when I was re-assessing what the Christian myth meant to me, given my world view. It occurred to me that however the person of Jesus fits (or does not fit) into one's theology, the Jesus Story dramatically illustrates the risk of incarnation. It was an emotional moment and I immediately connected with that notion because I knew first-hand the risk of incarnation.

In my work as a registered nurse, I often have to ask patients to sign a consent form for the surgeon to operate. I always ask the patient "Has the doctor explained to you the risks and the benefits of this procedure?" If the patient answers affirmatively, then I know that he or she is ready to sign the consent form. That day during the Eucharist, I knew that as I drank from the cup, I was affirming my own participation in the risk of incarnation. Knowing the beauty of being alive, I was also fully aware of the risk.

Celebrating the Light

Christmas is about light and life. It is a celebration in the middle of winter that the light will come and the darkness will end. It is a celebration of the promise of new life beginning. We call it Christmas, a time when Christians celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus as the incarnation of God and a light to the world.

The celebration existed, however, long before the Christians took it over. Winter Solstice had long been a time to celebrate the dawn on the darkness of winter. It was a time to extol the evergreen that proclaimed the promise of life in the dead of winter.

Christmas for us can be a time to celebrate the joy and beauty of incarnation as we know it. If we have lived long enough, we understand the risk, but we also know from our collective experience that the darkness will end. We sense the persistent hope of new life. We know that life on this planet is worth the risk. We can use the Christmas season to acknowledge our own participation in the incarnation of Life.

Our light has come.

Our day has dawned.

We can joyfully celebrate

Life is up to something,

    and we are included!

Life is full of surprises,

    and we are a part of it!

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A Boomer Finds Hope in the Millennials

In his recent Luntz Global Memorandum, GOP pollster Frank Luntz states, “If you’re looking for a breath of fresh air in this increasingly noxious political environment,wherein anger-driven voters permeate both political parties, look no further than America’s youth. They’re refreshingly, resoundingly sunny about America’s future.”

We see in the survey a big block of young voters who are socially concerned yet much more optimistic and progressive in their views than the populace at large.  I was a bit surprised at the gleeful tone of his memo, since Luntz is a right-wing political strategist. Speaking as a baby boomer who remembers the struggles of the 1960s and 70s, I see signs of hope among the millennials as shown in the survey findings. If we can make it over the shoals of the current election cycle, there may be smoother sailing ahead! 

Luntz Global surveyed 1,000 young Americans from ages 18 to 26 (he calls them "The Snapchat Generation). “These first- and second-time voters,” he writes, “see things much differently and with much more genuine hope than the older eyes that will mostly read this memo. And they’ll be bringing their own ideas to the polls – in droves!”

Some Hopeful Signs

Here are some of the things I was particularly glad to read (quotes from Luntz are in italics):

1. They don’t buy into American exceptionalism. The young are more likely to see themselves as “citizens of the world rather than citizens of America.” A much healthier view, I would say, than those who claim America’s greatness must be defended with an ever-increasing military budget, and with constant bellicose stances. We have to learn that we are a nation among many nations in the world, and therefore we must recognize military engagement to be an archaic form of negotiation.

National boundaries and nationalism just don’t mean the same to younger Americans as it does to their parents. A third of the Snapchat Generation (35%) define themselves as Citizens of the World rather than Citizens of America (65%). Among first time voters, the gap is even narrower: 42% citizens of the world and 58% citizens of America. This is a radical departure from what their parents and grandparents think about America and the world. Perhaps even more dramatically, nearly six in ten (58%) of the Snapchat Generation believe “America isn’t any better or worse than most other countries,” while just 42% believe that “America is exceptional. It’s better than every other country in the world.” First and second time voters simply reject the American superiority messaging in favor of the more global approach of the Democrats.

2. They put compassion above capitalism. By seeing the need for a caring community, they are freeing themselves from an ideology that extorts the poor, suppress the workers, and fills the coffers of the wealthy.

[T]hey didn’t rank “capitalism” as a top problem, but that doesn’t mean they’re in love with it. Quite the contrary. We asked them which is the most “compassionate” system, and an overwhelming 58% chose “socialism” over “capitalism” (33%). Heck, even “communism,” drew 9%. By a 2-1 margin, young voters see compassion in collectivism, not capitalism.

3. They just might be the key to wresting our democracy away from the corporate oligarchy that currently holds sway. Luntz’s survey found that young American are highly suspect toward business leaders and politicians, ranking them at the bottom of respected professions, while they place nurses, doctors and teachers at the top.

The hostility of young Americans to the underpinnings of the American economy and the American government ought to frighten every business and political leader as much as they excite activists for Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Clinton activists.

4. Most important, of the young Americans Luntz Global surveyed, 87% are likely to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

The Obama youth turnout was not just because it was for Barack Obama. This election cycle has clearly captured the imagination of first- and second-time voters. In fact, two-thirds (65%) are “extremely likely” to participate. Politicians, ignore young voters at your own peril. Because they sure as hell aren’t ignoring you.

Why Millennials Matter

I speak as one of those “Baby Boomers” – those born after WWII who came of age during the 1960s and 70s – when I say that millennials matter. They just might be the key to carrying forward the ideas that found fruition in our generation. We are, after all, at a point where we must begin handing over the reins of leadership to the younger set, and some of these young people are reminding us of the dreams we had for a better way.  

We saw big transitions with Elvis and then The Beatles when Rock began to hold sway. We saw "Peace and Love" at Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and a music revolution at Woodstock, NY. We protested the Vietnam War and saw Nixon come down. I thought that my generation was bringing in that “New World Coming” that the Mamas and the Papas sang about. We were the ones who would make the world stop and take notice.

Our generation saw the birth of the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement. We witnessed the drive for inclusion of the LGBT community and the recognition of Indigenous Peoples. Social change was in the wind.

Then the reality pendulum began to swing. Reagan was elected and back came that era we thought we had put behind us. Suddenly we found ourselves in a world where discrimination was once again okay, fossil fuels could again be exploited (forget the energy saving policies of Jimmy Carter), unions could be busted.

Executives no longer needed not worry about equality and fairness, they could give themselves raises and ship jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor. Worst of all, the working class and the working poor bought into the plan because it was patriotic, and it was “Morning in America,” by golly! It was a big step backward for the visionaries of the 1960s.

Backlashes to Equality

Though we were never lacking in advocates for peace and justice, uncertainty and fear began to hold sway in public life. “No More Taxes” became the slogan of the day, along with, “Government is the problem.” As a result, social supports became hobbled. Equity in public life was fading as corporate greed continued on the ascendancy. We feared that the corporate oligarchy might squelch the hope for an equitable society.

Next came Barack Obama. Was there ever a more hopeful and exciting time than that inauguration in January of 2008? Then the backlash of racism and hatred set in. We had thought that we were ready to move beyond our prejudices and divisions, only to find that the hatred that had been simmering just below the surface was asserting itself was coming into full bloom once again.

Nothing to Offer but Fear Itself

Looking back, we boomers saw a torrent of conflict growing up as various social movements clashed with the establishment. We witnessed the call for civil rights, women's rights and gay rights. Many of us found hope in the successes of those movements as legislation was enacted and attitudes seemed to be changing, but in recent years, all of that work seemed in danger of being reversed.

We saw politicians tapping into people's fears instead of offering solutions. There were increasing backlashes that decimated labor unions, ignored worker's rights, and incited renewed racism and hatred. In FDR's first inaugural address, he said famously proclaimed, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Too many of today's leaders and would-be leaders seem to be saying, "The only thing we have to offer is fear itself." 

Welcome to Our World

With the Luntz Global memorandum, we now hear a more hopeful voice if we will but listen, and it is coming from the young. Who would have thought that a conservative GOP pollster and strategist would bring such good tidings of great joy? Welcome to the political world, millennials! I hope you do a better job implementing hope and social change than we boomers have done. We must not only find better ways to govern with equity and fairness, we must also effectively care for the environment. Judging from the survey, you have the vision and the votes.

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Celebrating Christmas

Celebrate the season with whatever joy, hope, and light you have

For the past few years, some folks around where I live have taken up the slogan, "Put Christ back into Christmas." Perhaps they are urging people to move away from the hectic consumer-driven buying frenzy and discover a more spiritual celebration of the holiday. I have had the sense, though, that some are saying, this is a Christian holiday, it is our holiday, so you need to celebrate it our way. Last year, I came up with a snarky comeback: "Let's put the Mass back into Christmas." Since I was a former evangelical Christian who had discovered the ancient liturgy of the Catholic Church, I could "one-up" those conservative Christians when it came to getting back to the "reason for the season."

While part of my Christmas celebration will be to attend Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve (for the "Christ Mass"), Christmas has actually spilled out into the world, creating many ways to celebrate the light that comes to us even during the darkest time of the year. Before it was a "Christian holiday season," Winter Solstice was the oldest celebration in human history, some say going back 30,000 years to a time when people built bonfires to encourage the sun not to go away completely and to exercise the sure and certain hope that days of light and warmth were coming. Christmas has become that time when we can all celebrate the coming of the light to our lives and an end to our darkened days. A friend of mine shared a Christmas sermon by Rev. W. Leslie Pugh from Midland, Texas. Pugh tells why Christmas is important to him even though he can no longer literally believe the stories from the Bible. One thing he said was that "Christmas notions about the infusion of the divine into human dwellings -- a holy baby born in a manger -- happen often."

So celebrate the season however you wish, with whatever joy, hope and light that you have, in whatever way is meaningful to you. Take time to recognize the light in your life. Spend some time rejoicing that the story of the divine infusing our human dwellings is indeed true, and that such infusions of the divine happen often in our lives. Take this moment to be aware of the divine presence that not only "dwelt among us," but is still with us today.


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Distant Hope

 As part of National Poetry Month, I am re-posting an old poem, except now I have new photos taken from the same window where the old poem first emerged

Distant Hope

There are some days

When one is drained.

Curiosity is flat.

Mental strength is strained

And spiritual energy is depleted.

Today

Watching a goldfinch

At the thistle feeder

Outside the kitchen window

Is the only intellectual inquiry I can make

And the only prayer I can offer.

Yet today

It is all I need

To see hope on the wing.

                                    ~ CK

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"Hell Ain't Gonna Be Hot Enough"

‎"Human beings are a tension filled unity capable of infinite good and infinite evil."

                                                                                              
                                                                                                 ~ William Hendricks

Cleveland, Ohio
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It was not an uncommon phrase that I heard from the old folks when I was growing up: “Hell ain’t gonna be hot enough for some folks.” When news comes out like what we have heard this past week – about the three young women who were kidnapped and held captive for almost a decade in a Cleveland neighborhood – that phrase comes quickly back to mind. 

The problem is that long ago I adopted a more hopeful view of humanity. I came to believe that we are becoming more enlightened and are on an upward path. I tossed out any belief that there was a literal hell where people burn for all eternity.  I refused to accept John Calvin’s view of the total depravity of man much less the idea that God could consign people to eternal torment.

Seeing the World with New Eyes

Having grown up in church, and in the middle of "the Bible Belt," I once had this notion that there was something different about those who are "redeemed" vs. those who are "in the world." When I went to seminary, I left the Bible Belt and went to Mill Valley, California. While in school there, I got a job at Mosher's Shoe Store in Mill Valley and immersed myself in the culture. I found that my premise about church people vs. un-churched was not true. My unscientific observation was that the people I met and came to know who were not religious were every bit as good and caring as the church people I grew up with. I also had to acknowledge that some church folk could be just as crooked and self-centered as any image one could muster of an un-redeemed heathen.

My take-away from that experience in Mill Valley was that 1) Human goodness can be celebrated wherever it is to be found. 2) There are good people and bad people, caring people and selfish people in every milieu. 3) It helped to give me a much brighter view of the world and they that dwell therein. 4) I was relieved that I didn't have to worry about converting masses of people to anything. 

The Problem of Evil and the Pain of Suffering

I like to think the best about human endeavors and can readily name scores of things to be thankful for. Yet last week when the details began to emerge about the cruelty and torture of those women in that Cleveland neighborhood, I felt a chill come over me. I was appalled at what I was hearing, and could not help thinking, “If this has been going on for ten years and we knew nothing of it until now, what other evil things are happening in homes in other neighborhoods that we are not even aware of?”

I was hit with a dose of reality. The shock of such depravity reminded me of how John Calvin might have come by his ideas of the total depravity of man. It reminded me of why we have a need for the idea of hell.  When we feel helpless about finding justice in this world, sometimes we can only hope that justice will be met in the next life.

Some would argue that it is not just the concept of Hell, but also the idea of Heaven that helps us to cope.  In The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a character in the story says, “I will tell you a story that will make you believe in God.” By the time the novel is over, the reader realizes that he may have meant that we have to believe in a loving God or we could not deal with the harsh realities of things we suffer in this life.  In short, it may be that we tell ourselves stories to help us make some sense of the world.

Life is a Sacred Mix

I had a theology professor, William Hendricks, when I was a seminary student in Mill Valley. He had a brilliant and creative mind and was one of those people who could take all factors into account in his over-arching philosophy of life.  I quoted him at the outset because those words drive home the fact that we all have the capacity for good as well as evil.  A blithe view that life is wonderful will not get us through many bumps on life’s journey if we are honest. At the same time, living in fear that humanity is hopelessly depraved will not give us the strength to endure either.  

           

It is times like these when I must accept that all of us are “a tension-filled unity” capable of both good and evil. I remind myself of Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi’s words, "There is more good than evil in the world – but not by much." What then can we do when confronted with evil and when we see such disregard for other people? We continue to show the light that we have. We remember that in addition to the kidnapper Ariel Castro, there was the neighbor, Charles Ramsey who helped rescue the kidnapped women when he heard a cry for help. There are many at work at this moment to try to bring about healing and justice for the three women and the six-year-old daughter who were rescued.     

  

I am also reminded of the words of Mary Anne Evans, the nineteenth century author who wrote under the male pseudonym “George Eliot” in order to be taken more seriously. At the end of her novel Middlemarch she wrote,  "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

It is indeed the small “unhistoric” acts that we must continue to do if we are to see a better and safer world. Pinning our hopes on political leaders, ecclesiastical hierarchy, or grand social schemes will inevitably lead to disappointment. Looking to our neighbor, the “Charles Ramseys” of the world; being that good neighbor in our small daily acts; trusting that our small lives can contribute to the balance of good over evil – these are the things that can give us hope from day to day. These are the things that will contribute to “the growing good of the world.”

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"Hope is the thing with feathers"

Distant Hope

There are some days

When one is drained.

Curiosity is flat.

Mental strength is strained

And spiritual energy is depleted.

Today

Watching a goldfinch

At the thistle feeder

Outside the kitchen window

Is the only intellectual inquiry I can make

And the only prayer I can offer.

Yet today

It is all I need

To see hope on the wing.

                           Charles Kinnaird

Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune--without the words, 
And never stops at all.
                               – Emily Dickinson