It usually takes me at least a month or so to read through all of the articles.  The articles are written with an obvious concern for guiding readers to a place of personal reflection and deep thought.

Recently, I’ve developed the habit of looking first for the poetry sprinkled throughout the journal — even before I read the articles.  About every 6-8 pages or so there is usually a great piece to make me think, wonder and reflect.

The March/April 2009 issue is no exception…  The piece below is called, Hope and it is written by Victoria Safford (Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, March/April 2009 Volume XXIV, Number 2, page 19).

“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope–not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak and shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything Is Gonna Be All Right.”  But a different, sometimes lonely place, of truth-telling about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle but joy in the struggle.  And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we’re seeing, asking them what they see.”

Or dream of it at least, as I ignore
An unkempt man who begs for change, who keeps
The headlines’ promise of another war.
The rich against the poor, it’s me against

This unkempt man who begs for change, who keeps
Reminding me of my humanity.
The rich against the poor–it’s me against
The forces of injustice, all alone.

Reminding me of my humanity,
My coffee burns my tongue. It hurts to drink
In bed last night, I dreamed this happy dream:

My coffee burned my tongue, it hurt to drink
Because I’d nearly died from thirst and then
In bed–O last of nights!–I dreamed. This dream
Was like my dream of peace, except peace won

Because there was no death, no thirst. And then
The world was pure again, receiving gifts
And giving them. I toss the man my change.
This season always makes me question peace.