hope begins in the dark

when you come awake to what's really going on, you pay the price. you carry the weight and the wait is real. i've seen some incredibly dark moments in the last few weeks. asides from what surrounds me, it seems to be running rampant everywhere. there is broken-hearted sadness in the beautiful face of a new friend, disillusion in the familiar faces of my companions, exhaustion in my own red-streaked and swollen stare. i hear you speak and the corners of my heart agree "this is a sad world...", but i believe that there is something beautiful trying to be born in the pangs of this childbirth. and so we wait and ache, alone in the dark, fumbling for a hand or at least a familiar glance that reaches through our eyes and whispers "i know."

there are easier ways out of this: self-medicate, deny, ignore, hunker down in the corner, isolate, have another. but my heart tells me that this is getting increasingly desperate. we need to fight, embrace the horror, and remember that we are not alone. not one of us.

anne lamott says "hope begins in the dark... you wait and watch and work. you don't give up." my memory of hope is daubed with fingerprints and dirt. but i am watching, and trying not to give up. don't you give up either.

"after the last tear falls
after the last secret's told
after the last bullet tears thru flesh and bone
after the last child starves
and the last girl walks the boulevard
after the last year that's just too hard
there is love...

after the last plan fails
after the last siren wails
after the last young husband sails off to join the war
after the last 'this marriage is over'
after the last young girls innocence is stolen
after the last years of silence that won't let a heart open
there is love...

in the end
the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again
we'll see how the tears that have fallen
were caught in the palms
of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
we'll look back on these tears as old tales"