Wednesday of Hope – Hope of All Hallows Eve

In our Christian tradition, the eve of a feast is the beginning of the celebration of that feast. Today is Halloween, or originally, All Hallows Eve – the evening before All Saints Day – October 31st.  On All Saints Day – November 1st– we remember all those faithful women and men who have died, but never received “official” recognition that their lives were holy. Truly, all of us are holy . . . all of us are saints.

We can recall that wonderful song, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Those words are our hope, “O, Lord, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in!” The other feast we celebrate at this time is All Souls Day, sometimes known as The Day of the Dead – November 2nd– when we remember those who have died, and hold them in our prayers.

So for this these three days, we celebrate three feasts that remember all those who have died, and we are reminded that we too will die.  Our faith in the resurrection gives us confidence in the joyful communion we will share with those we have loved when we are fully united with our loving God.

Finding a Joyous Field

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.

– Rumi

Wednesday of Hope – Facing Life’s Challenges

Even when life challenges us, it’s a gift beyond all measure.

– Parker Palmer

Every Creature Teaches Us of God

Every creature is a word of God and a book about God.

– Meister Eckhart

Wednesday of Hope – Despair Cannot Stain Joy

…no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic joy which is always there.

– Thomas Merton

The Vulnerability of Precious Things

The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence – that is beautiful.

– Simone Weil

Wednesday of Hope – Entering the Spaciousness of Uncertainty

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.

– Rebecca Solnit

Earth Belongs to All Living Creatures – Not Just Humans

To all earth’s creatures God has given the broad earth, the springs, the rivers and the forests, giving the air to the birds, and the waters to those who live in water, giving abundantly to all the basic needs of life, not as a private possession, not restricted by law, not divided by boundaries, but as common to all, amply and in rich measure.

– Gregory of Nazianzus

Wednesday of Hope – Waiting without Hope

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope…..wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing.

– T.S. Elliot

We in the Mountains/The Mountains in Us

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.

– John Muir