Harvest of Hope

This is the season of joy and satisfaction, the time when the harvest is collected to carry us through the lean months of winter’s cold. It is joyous if the harvest is bountiful, troubling if the crops have failed. I have never known the apple trees in front of the parish hall to be so full of fruit. Over at the rectory, I never realized there was an apple tree in the corner of the yard until this year when it, too, became conspicuously laden with fruit. Looks like this could be one of the joyous harvest years.

Yet my heart is heavy when I read the news with the hundreds of women, children, and men who die weekly in Iraq. My compassion is fatigued after Katrina and Rita and now the horrible earthquake in Pakistan. The day of writing this, I went by the offices of A-Home to read their grant proposal to Episcopal Charities (St. Mary’s sponsors a grant for A-Home). The proposal detailed how Section 8 Housing grants have been cut way back, putting enormous fiscal strain on A-Home. I was left to wonder how many people, in this time of bountiful harvest, found themselves homeless, without shelter, when Section 8 was diverted to other government spending — like war. What shall we reap at this harvest time?

With all the bad news that seems to fill the airwaves these days, we could reap a bountiful harvest of despair. but eating that harvest would leave you and me emaciated emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically. So why don’t we dump those rotten apples? I don’t mean putting on rose-colored glasses and ignoring the problems of the world around us; there’s enough of that as it is in our country at the moment. Instead, let’s reap a bountiful harvest of hope.

Counterintuitive, you think? You bet! The best way to take on despair is to clobber it with hope. When I look at the young children that buzz with energy through St. Mary’s, the air is ripe with hope. When I see the people of St. Mary’s gathered and giving their time on a Friday night to sort clothes, cook food, prepare meals, and head off to Manhattan to meet and greet the homeless, fields of hope loom across the horizon. When people begin to have the courage to question the sanity of our involvement in a 21st century crusade, I sense the bravado of hope breaking mental, emotional, and spiritual shackles.

Will this be the winter of our despair? It sure will be, if we allow it. But there is too much good in this world to give in to despondency. Remember the first creation story in Genesis? In the 31st verse it says, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” Despair can blind our eyes to see that good, but if we open ourselves to God’s presence, we can see the true beauty of life and be energized by it to action.

With that vision, it does not matter what is wrong with this world, because we know that giving of our time, talent, and resources we can work to make it right. With the vision of the goodness of God’s creation, we can carry our bounty of hope to the empty storehouses of the despondent. Our hearts filled with God’s vision, we can beat back the challenge of despair one person at a time.

Just remember: “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

Joel t