Week One, Day Five Hope

I invite you into the prayer practice of Visio Divina by first focusing and framing your breath.

Breathe in to the count of three...exhale to the count of six or seven.

Breathe in the One who dances with delight, the One who is soft/quiet, the One who is there when you are simply trying to get dinner on the table...exhale those words that want to say there is no meaning or no purpose.

Breathe in a playfulness...breathe out the seriousness that stifles or thinks that there is only one way to “adult” in the world today.

Look at the image and let your eyes stay with the very first thing that you see. Keep your attention on that one part of the image that first catches your eye. Try to keep your eyes from wandering to other parts of the picture. Breathe deeply and let yourself gaze at that part of the image for a minute or so.  

Next, you may want to make a list of everything you see.  Or you may want to name just one or two things you notice, then ask yourself why you are focusing there?

Then, let your eyes gaze at the whole image. Take your time and look at every part of the photograph. See it all. Stand there on the street gazing at this sight, and let your imagination run wild like Max from the children's book, Where the Wild Things Are.  Reflect on the whole image for a minute or so.

Consider the following questions:

What emotions does this image evoke in you?

What does the image stir up in you, bring forth in you?

Does this image lead you into an attitude of prayer? If so, let these prayers take form in you. Write them down if you desire.

Reflection

Yup...

That is a tree growing from a building.

Yup...

That means in-between the bricks and mortar of what man hath made, a seedling decided to plant itself and put down roots saying, "Perfect! Just perfect!"

Yup...

I think one of the thousand words this photo evokes for me is, "Hope", and you could add to that word: "unbelievable," "impossible," "bizarre," and "what in the name of all that is holy!"

The photo comes to you courtesy of the city of Seattle.  We were on the Underground Tour of the city where you get to see how Seattle, because of its proximity to water and trying to solve its constant flooding issues, decided to build up.  You can still see where some of the businesses tried to operate in the original footprint down below the present-day street level.  You can see the structure that is holding up the sidewalks and buildings above your heads.  You can smell the musty air, see where people abandoned toilets and discarded trash, and shake your head and think, "Wait, I paid money to see this?!"

The strange way hope works won't follow a straight line.

The wonky way of hope delights in that which won't conform or be reasonably, rationally defended.

Hope simply starts to grow within us and around us regardless of whether the conditions are “correct” in the ways we define and distinguish the world.

When we do stumble across hope, or when someone else points it out to us, it will take us by surprise and cause a smile to cross our face.  And you may want to snap a photo of it, because others are not going to believe what they see.

May that kind of hope take root in the routines of your life in these days.  May you walk around your life focusing and framing, gazing, prayerfully pondering the place where hope enters in the most odd and usual ways: like in a barn, like in people who surprise you, like in moments of perplexing puzzlement, a tree growing out of a building, and may it all be more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~~