Thoughts on vacation

Indeed, I thought while I was on vacation. Along stretches of Highway Five and down along the Amtrak line, where you’re not found on a map and nobody really knows where you are, I had time to think. And to finish a book.  The long travel-based stretches were about it for thinking though — the rest ranged from peaceful family time to utter chaos, and often the chaos won. Certainly no time for thought there.

I’ve been playing around with SlideShare in attempt to both put a story to vacation and overcome my legendary dislike of PowerPoint.  Let’s see how far I get:

Prisoner of hope

wedding day

I’m so excited to confirm that long-lost pals Jim Lowder and Jerene Broadway have accepted our offer to come out and perform our wedding ceremony in October. I’m indebted to Jim for the concept of hope in general (see my previous post), and I’m extra indebted to Jerene for a recent email and shout-out to African American theologian Cornel West, as quoted in a recent Rolling Stone article:

The categories of optimism and pessimism don’t exist for me. I’m a blues man. A blues man is a prisoner of hope, and hope is a qualitatively different category than optimism. Optimism is a secular construct, a calculation of probability. Black folk in America have never been optimistic about the future – what have we had to be optimistic about? But we are people of hope. Hope wrestles with despair, but it doesn’t generate optimism. It just generates this energy to be courageous, to bear witness, to see what the end is going to be. No guarantee, unfinished, open-ended. I am a prisoner of hope. I’m going to die full of hope.

In making me aware of this quote, Jerene has kicked the entire concept of hope to the next level. I can only endeavor to be a prisoner of hope and abide by this thing I’ve been so compellingly recently drawn towards. It has occurred to me since giving birth to Lucy that having a child (in any of various ways) is itself the ultimate act of hope, and likewise it has also occurred to me that it provides indeed a precious reason to hope in general.

Jerene provides me with the biggest gift when she elaborates, referring to the Cornel West quote:

He is quoting the book of Zechariah when he refers to himself as a “prisoner of hope,” a phrase which has always captured my imagination. I resonate with his insistence that hope is the courageous choice, for I surely know that it is easier to be cynical & despairing than to be hopeful. I’m working very hard to live into that kind of hopefulness. From your writing, it sounds like you have chosen hope as your home. May you continue to reside there, welcoming others in.

Such beautiful words; I count myself lucky to receive them. Thanks Jerene.

Leanne interrupts me just now to tell me that one thing our daughter has marked in the latest catalog as a required birthday present is actually not for sale (the surfboard). Way to go Lucy! Nothing is beyond your reach. May you always be filled with this. May we all be so lucky to be prisoners of hope.

Chapel of Hope

On Thursday, May 15, it’s true, Bette Midler’s particularly brassy-voiced version of “Chapel of Love” was ringing through my head as I was running down Market Street trying to get to the California State Building by 10am, in time for the Supreme Court’s decision on In Re Marriage. (As you may remember,) It was a very hot day, and I was panting and sweaty by the time I reached the Supreme Court — not in good shape for my photo opp with Kate Kendell — but I was feeling surprisingly hopeful about the immediately pending decision on marriage.

It struck me that, having hope, I could have been greatly devastated by a negative decision, and yet I decided to act in accordance with hope itself. I was not disappointed that day.

Since then I’ve been completely charmed by the fact of hope itself. So when the NCLR called to offer Leanne and me an interview spot this week on All Things Considered with Melissa Block, we cleared our schedules. We spoke hopefully, soulfully, and as if we were talking with friends — who just happened to span the nation.

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about the Harvey Milk quote my friend Jim Lowder used to quote in his sermons:

The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it.

Never have I appreciated that sentiment as much as I have in these days, and it strikes me that the act of living at all is the ultimate act of hope. As for marriage, we think the third time is a charm and yes we think Californians will act fairly and keep our marriage legal, but above all, we have hope, we have each other, and we have our family. These things are the most precious of all, and I’ll make as many vows as it takes to keep them that way.