Hope Archives - Jennifer Searls

Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope – Joan D. Chittister

September 24, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Hope and despair are not opposites. They are cut from the very same cloth, made from the very same material, shaped from the very same circumstances. Every life finds itself forced to choose one from the other, one day at a time, one circumstance after another.

By losing everything, we come to the realization that everything is far less than we think it is and far more than we ever dreamed it could be. In the end, everything is what cannot be taken away, what cannot be lost, what will not fail us in our hope. Everything is the nagging awareness that always there is more and that I already have it. I am reduced by misery to stop and look through the darkness to the light on the horizon that never changes. Darkness becomes the incubator of light.

How am I just now discovering Sister Joan D. Chittister!?! Toward the end of last week I picked up Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope and flew through it. Her words resonate with my experience and I could not read fast enough. I made so many #notestoself. I am eager to get more of her work, and learn from her.

Joy is Resistance

May 16, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

A couple weeks ago I spotted this in my twitter feed:

Joy. It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. Not the Jesus Others You stuff I learned in childhood church school and have long since discarded as weird and woefully incomplete. Not the happy face “joy” that refuses to also hold space for the fear and pain. Rather, ever since my April 30 mammogram, I’ve been thinking about this kind of joy:

This mammogram was supposed to be routine, the kind where I get a letter a couple days later to say NORMAL, come again next year. But I have had far too many routine medical tests turn into emotionally exhausting pile-ons: Wait! What’s That?!? let’s look again. and now again with a different machine, and also this needle and perhaps a knife too.

Along this bumpy way I have discovered the bookstore antidote, and so, now finished with my mammogram but stuck in the waiting period, I stopped at Barnes and Noble on my way home. Poetry has become a solid handhold in my pushback to anxieties and fear, and this day I was surprised and delighted to find the latest book from Christian Wiman there. Somehow I’d missed even knowing it was a thing.

The colors, the type, the white space. three letters combined. Simple, and yet so very not. Never mind the Amazon reviewer who said the cover was wrong! In that moment, I experienced it as a gift. As grace.

And I reached for it.

Indeed, this is the joy I’ve been thinking about –

The joy that knows the depths of my fear, my grief, my pain – and holding that true – yet calls my soul to rise. to live. to love. (dare I say) to dance.

Joy: that durable, inexhaustible, essential, inadequate word. – Wiman

Joy is resistance.

Earth Day on the South Side

April 22, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

In all the crazy hard stuff that has been this past year, the refrain that keeps resounding in my soul: “Behold I make all things new.” This morning, as I thought about Earth Day and our new-to-us big south facing backyard with snow nearly melted away, I remembered this post I wrote on Earth Day 2009. Tonight I tracked it down in my journal and found a picture to match the time. It seems appropriate to repost here.

From April 22, 2009: Earth Day on the South Side

Today Ethan and I were out working in our strawberry beds and I thought back through images of the south side space. It’s the path by which we travel in and out of the backyard. The bikes roll through there. Treasure chests are buried there. Stonehenge was built there. The winter compost feeds the soil there. And now…..strawberries will grow there. And it’s a beautiful thing-beds with plants. Blossoms. Soil. Water. All of it.

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.

I’m blessed to always have been connected to the earth. I’m grateful for parents who made it possible for me to touch the dirt, to smell the flowers, to watch the waves, to walk in the mountains, to eat from the garden.

Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world and all who live in it……

and all who live in it…

There’s something hopeful here. Something relational. Something beautiful and productive. There’s something that in the end……will be made right.

As my chattering helper and I pulled weeds, examined blossoms, prepared soil, and watered the new plants, the soundtrack deep within sounded like this:

This is my Father’s world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings
The music of the spheres

This is my Father’s world
The birds their carols raise
The morning light, the lily white
Declare their maker’s praise

This is my Father’s world
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas
His hand the wonders wrought

This is my Father’s world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres

This is my Father’s world
He shines in all that’s fair
In the rustling grass I hear him pass
He speaks to me everywhere

This is my Father’s world
And let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong
God is the ruler yet

This is my Father’s world
The battle is not done
Jesus who died will be satisfied
And earth and heaven be one.

Light That Shines In Darkness

October 18, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

This morning I was making coffee in the kitchen when I heard Ethan flipping light switches in the next room. A little bit later he came to the kitchen and grumbled, “These lights are weird. I can never figure out which switch turns on which light.” My thoughts EXACTLY.

Recently I’ve noticed my irritation when all too often I flip a switch and get no light. I walk a few steps to a different switch and flip it only to produce light in a totally different part of the room. So then I walk across the room and try again with a different switch. Now the light that I’ve just turned on goes dark. And I still don’t have the light I wanted. Every once in a while, I get lucky and the lightbulb I want comes on with my first flip of a switch, but more often I give up in exasperation and just carry on, using whatever light is available.

Why – after nearly 2 years of living in this apartment – don’t I know the switch-light relationships?!? And then I realized, it’s because I go for days, weeks, months without using them! Living at this latitude means we have a long stretch of summer days and nights where it never gets completely dark.

But in the rhythm of seasons, there comes time to pay the price for the seemingly endless summer light, and that time is now. We lost nearly 3 hours of daylight in September and we’re continuing to lose at a rate of about 5.5 minutes per day, on pace to lose another almost 3 hours in October. When we first moved to Anchorage from Oregon in the fall 2012, David made me a graph to compare our sunrise/sunset times with Portland. Right now we are sliding down maximum slope, straight into the deep dark, cold winter and I feel dread rising. It started at the edge of a September sunset while I watched the sun slip behind the mountains, leaving glorious colors of sky to fade into the black of night. It dances with my memories in the chill air of season’s change.

Dark was once cancer in my brother’s body. Dark is death. The loss of a grandparent. A friend. A dream. Dark is a move miles and miles from home. It is marriage in turmoil. It is a miscarriage. Again. Dark is the loss of a job. A career. Uncertainty. It is pain. Dark is anger. Anguish. And grief. Dark is a broken body. In the hospital. Alone. At night. Dark is parenting in moments of fear. It is a lump. A test. A waiting room. Dark is the blank spots in my brain. The terrifying holes I fall in.

“I don’t want this winter!” I proclaim in futile protest. “I’m not ready. It’s too hard. Too cold. Too dark.”

But this evening I pull on my hat and my gloves. And walk into the fading light. I crunch through frosty leaves and icy puddles. Winter is coming. I can feel it. The deep, cold dark. I flip switches that may or may not produce the light that I want. And yet. In a Gospel of John + Barbara Brown Taylor mashup – these words: “There is a light which shines in the darkness, which is only visible there.”

There is a light which shines in the darkness.

This is the light that I need.

Practicing Hope With Maggie

July 8, 2013 By Jennifer 3 Comments

So I like to read. A lot. In eager anticipation of her visit to Loussac Library tomorrow I’ve been reading Linda Sue Park’s books to my boys and last week in Keeping Score I read this description: The library at Grand Army Plaza was one of Maggie’s favorite places. mom had taken her there ever since she was a baby; the library had opened the same year Maggie was born. One of their regular outings, with Maggie in the baby carriage and Joey-Mick toddling alongside, had been a walk through Prospect Park to the enormous building at the north end, its entry flanked by huge columns and framed with gilded ironwork. They would walk throughout the big doors and pick out books and read and have a nice rest until it was time to go home again.

As I read this passage I was sideswiped by puzzle pieces of memory. One piece is covered in gravel and concrete as I stepped from the curb up into the shared space of a TriMet bus. This piece snaps to the one that takes me down the road from Aloha to Hillsboro and drops me off at the tree shaded library building nestled in a green oasis against the backdrop of city traffic and strip malls. There are pieces that include picnics and park play. Several pieces fit together to shape the glass case which held the reward books. I walked past these each week with my arms stacked with books, debating my eventual choice. At the end of each summer reading challenge I chose a new book of my own from that case.

The edge pieces frame this puzzle securely. My Nurse Mom worked in the summers of my elementary school years and my Teacher Dad was in charge. Dad fixed my brother, sisters & me hot dogs and macaroni for lunch on alternating days. And he took us on public transportation to the adjacent city to participate in the summer reading program. Sometimes my Grandma, who lived nearby, joined us.

There were a lot of holes in this puzzle as I fit it together and it’ll surely be the topic of future family conversations as I hunt for some missing pieces, but nonetheless I know what the box top picture looks like. It’s a snapshot of my early summer reading experiences at the public library. I don’t remember any performances or crafts as part of the program. Just opportunity and incentive to immerse myself in stories. And I was lucky to have a Dad who made this a priority in our family life.

As he sets his excellent memoir, The World’s Strongest Librarian, into the framework of a library, Josh Hanagarne writes: “Libraries have shaped and linked the disparate threads of my life.” Truth.

I could tell my story using libraries as physical markers. My childhood home library was filled with books stamped “Discard” because my dad spent some of his teaching years as school librarian. The smell of a school library is etched in the depths of my being. My first work-study job was in my college library. David and I met in a library and spent hours of early conversations there. I served on the board of a remarkable small town library while it struggled(s) to grow programs and adequately serve its population amidst difficult economic times and difficult city politics. I believe public libraries and public school libraries are critical for the good of the social order.

But for me it’s not really about the structure of library. (Though I realize that matters for the next statement to be true.) It’s about the stories I find there. Frederick Buechner said, “The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all” and from the movie Shadowlands, this quote: “We read to know we’re not alone.”

The boys and I finished reading Keeping Score but I find myself continuing to think about Maggie’s story, the little girl who faithfully followed the Brooklyn Dodgers and kept detailed game scores through repeated “close but not quite” pursuits for the title in the early 1950s. Meanwhile her friend Jim returned from Korea with PTSD and couldn’t re-engage his life. Maggie struggled to keep on – as a faithful Dodgers fan and as a friend in a one-sided friendship with Jim.

….Every game, every inning, every play – really, every pitch she had recorded in the book had been a chance to hope for something good to happen.

She shook her head and almost smiled. Dodger fans probably had more practice at hoping than fans of any other team. The same thing over and over again, but always different.

Prayers were like that, too. Her bedtime prayers – saying almost the same thing each night, but feeling a little different sometimes, depending on what she was praying for……Maybe praying was another way to practice hope.

If that was true, then between the Dodgers and praying, she ought to be getting awfully good at hoping.

Maggie sighed. What’s the use of getting good at it? Hope doesn’t do anything.

Another voice spoke up inside her head. But hope is what gets everything started. When you make plans, it’s because you hope something good is going to happen. Hope always comes first.

Dreams, Loss, Frustration and Fear. There it is. Maggie’s story is in some measure my story and in some measure the story of us all. At the point when she despairs of her efforts and plans made out of hope her friend Treecie challenges her to Keep On: “How do you know it doesn’t make a difference in the end?”

We read to know we’re not alone. And with Maggie, I pray to practice hope.

Evidence of Things Not Seen

May 17, 2013 By Jennifer 2 Comments

I read Anne Lamott’s latest book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers during a stretch of gorgeous March weather. The days here in Anchorage were getting longer, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. One afternoon Ethan and I even squeezed fresh lemonade and set it outside to chill. There were still a couple feet of snow on the ground, but that didn’t stop me from exclaiming with Lamott: “When all is said and done, spring is the main reason for Wow. Spring is crazy, being all hope and beauty and glory. She is the resurrection.”

We had just come through our first Alaskan winter. I’d filed the 10am sunrises deep in my memory and we were riding Maximum Slope on the way to Spring! Oh! So quickly we got knocked off the rails.

photo from imgur.com

As it turned out, the snow was far from finished. The cold temperatures lingered. While my Facebook feed cluttered with glorious words and images of Spring down in Oregon, this was the best I could do:

We flew to Oregon at the end of April leaving piles of snow and ice at home. When we returned two weeks later we were delighted with the transformation! Roads and sidewalks were clear and dry. Leftover patches of snow have continued to melt into the increasingly long, warm days. But even still, the sky has been largely overcast and our landscape remains weathered and bare. Brown is the dominant color.

Last weekend a daffodil pair appeared outside our front door. There is not another spot of color anywhere in sight, yet they stand brave and tall against the difficult background. All beauty and glory and Hope!

And then today it snowed. This is now the longest snow season on record in Anchorage: 231 days since the first snow fell on September 29, 2012. But Oh! Crazy Spring!! I still watch and wait for you.

Tonight I went out and took of a picture of the bright daffodil pair. They stand together. I think that’s not a mistake. They stand tall in spite of the falling temperatures and sticking snow. Together they bear witness and how boldly they shout: Faith is Confidence in things hoped for….Evidence of things not seen. Spring! She is the resurrection.

I’m Pregnant But Don’t Tell My Mom: A Broken Hallelujah

March 10, 2013 By Jennifer 6 Comments

I had a bunch of broken ribs when I was pregnant with Ethan. I have no memory of the car accident that broke the ribs, but I remember the first trimester + broken ribs.

I found out I was pregnant the day before the accident. After a long, hot June Saturday tromping through central Oregon Lava Sites and the High Desert Museum with David, 3 1/2 year old Ryan and my in-laws we finally got back to Eagle Crest Resort late afternoon. While the others settled in for some down time, I went to nearby Redmond Fred Meyer in search of dinner food. Whatever I bought for dinner I don’t remember, but on impulse I bought a glimpse into my future.

I’d had complications and miscarriages since Ryan’s birth, but I hadn’t given up yet. I bought a pregnancy test. When I got back to the condo, my mother in law came to the car and helped me unload the groceries. As I handed her bags – making sure to keep the test package to myself – she told me that she had meant to come with me, but by the time she was ready I was gone. If she had come, I would Not Have Bought That Test.

Early the next morning I knew I was pregnant.

After just finishing a year of half-time teaching, I was slated to return to full-time teaching in the coming fall. I was excited for the creative, challenging possibilities embedded in the blend of 4th and 5th grade students I’d been given. But now I was pregnant and that changed so many things.

The very next morning a car accident changed everything.

I remember packing the car on that grey misty Monday morning. I remember stopping for gas in Sisters and settling Ryan in with a Bob the Builder dvd in the laptop while we waited for the attendant to pump our gas. I was driving. My father in law was in the passenger seat, Ryan was behind him and my mother in law behind me. We left the gas station and then, as we began the westward climb up into the Santiam Pass, my memory blips.

It begins recording again in the middle of a conversation just after 11 on Wednesday morning. I was talking to the doctor about my pregnancy. He was telling me that there was nothing to be done about it but wait. I told him I completely understood. It’s weird to remember this conversation. I was engaged and speaking as if I knew exactly what was going on and completely aware of all that had been happening. It was shortly after this conversation that I remember reviewing the details of the accident with David. It was as if I already knew, but needed to say it all again in order to remember this time: Everybody survived. Ryan was okay. The accident was not my fault.

Of course there are many stories and hospital documents to fill in my gap but it’s weird to not have access to my own memories.

A few highlights:

1. I only gave my maiden name at the accident scene which caused quite a bit of trouble for friends and family to track me down. Because of the severity of the accident and being unable to locate me on the hospital registry…..some feared I’d not been transported to a hospital.

2. The transport and intake records show that I was focused on my pregnancy and adamant that I not be given medicine which would hurt the baby.

3. In the ICU I again told the medical staff, “I’m pregnant. But don’t tell my mom!” It’s odd that I knew I was pregnant and was diligently taking care of my baby, but I couldn’t understand that my parents were right there in the room while I gave those instructions for secrecy.

In spite of the drama and my inability to keep a secret this was the pregnancy that would stick.

healthy baby

My accident recovery was complicated and challenging, but my ribs healed and my pregnancy progressed. Pain, fear, anxiety and loss tangled with determination, gratitude, love, faith, and hope. And then on March 10, 2006, the mix was infused with profound joy.

Spring Breakup

I’ve been tromping through an emotionally challenging stretch of days and recent warmer temperatures have melted a landscape to match my mood.When I woke to see snow steadily falling outside my window this morning it wasn’t unusual like the brief snow flurry that swirled around us as we headed to the hospital in the early morning darkness of March 10, seven years ago. But in the depths of my soul it was remarkable. In a moment of memory I was back in a hospital room holding my healthy newborn. In the same moment I was further back in a different hospital room trying to make sense of my story. And in the very same moment I was standing here now looking out the window watching as the new snow painted beauty all around me. I kissed my seven year old birthday boy and Leonard Cohen’s broken hallelujah lyrics became the soundtrack for my day: And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah……

It may be that praise means the most in the valley of the shadow of death, where grief stomps on our chest and makes it barely possible to breathe—and yet we breathe nonetheless –Jack Levison

Hope In Half A Banana

February 15, 2013 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

I think we lose sight of the beauty, the most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn’t know I could get out from underneath. You know, the moments I look back in my life, and think, those were the moments that made me — were moments of struggle…..Hope is a function of struggle.
-Brené Brown, On Being Interview with Krista Tippett, 11.22.12

It’s not uncommon that I’ll get nearly to the end of my treadmill run in the morning and flood with temptation – “I’m tired of this and it won’t make any difference if I just get off now.” Usually I’m only about 2 − 3 minutes from the end and stopping really wouldn’t make much difference. Except that I’ve wrestled this one down and for me it has really become a metaphor for NOT Quitting.

In December 2005, 6 months after my head injury I read Gifts from the Broken Jar by head injury survivor PJ Long, and copied this to my journal: I realized that what is initially most troubling for brain injury patients is their diminished ability to function. “Not doing the things I used to do” translates pretty quickly into “not being the person I used to be.” It is that perceived loss of self that lingers and can become so devastating (226) .

I followed this entry with my own reflections: I continually find it affirming to look at the stories of other brain injury survivors. My feeling of alienation is not unique. It’s a hard thing to explain to my world….the people who look at me and talk to me and think….wow, she’s doing great! The reality as I expressed to one of my therapists Friday is….there isn’t anything in my life that I do now that isn’t in some way impacted by my head injury. I don’t live a moment of my day that isn’t touched and colored by this new brain. This brings incredible frustration. I just want to be done. And done isn’t an option.

Done is always an option on the treadmill, but what about real life when it’s not?

My journal entry continues: I want to quit. I don’t like this game. Nobody asked me if I wanted to play. I have to learn so many new ways of living my life. Living is not automatic. It requires new strategies. And then there are constant reminders that what I knew is gone and what I know is new and difficult, and what is coming is completely unknown. I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.123rf.com #17187754

In Fall 2004 I walked the Portland Marathon. I’d maintained a really good pace when all of the sudden somewhere about mile 23 I just wanted to be done. My legs started shaking and I imagined falling off to the side of the road in an exhausted heap. Miraculously, just ahead were volunteers handing out 1/2 bananas.

I. Don’t. Like. Bananas.

But that half banana saved me. It was just enough nourishment. I kept moving and finished the race strong. And I learned two things.

1. Hope is born in difficult places.
2. Hope can take surprising form.