What Hope Sounds Like

Yesterday morning, I went over to my dad and stepmom’s house to do laundry.  They are out of town and my stepsister has been coming over to feed their cat Lucy.  Lucy is an awesome cat, perhaps made more awesome because of her love for me.  Cats are not dogs.  They are infinitely more discerning when it comes to liking anyone.  But Lucy is a cat who, as soon as she hears my voice, will come running.  And with her being left alone for a few days, I expected her to be crying and running to me as soon as she heard the door open.

But when I stepped into the house yesterday and called for Lucy, there was only silence.

“Lucy!”  I called again.

Nothing.

I wondered if maybe my stepsister had decided to bring Lucy to her own house while my dad and Barb were out of town.

“Lucy!” I called one more time.

And this time, she answered, loudly.  I said, her name again and she responded again, loudly crying out. 

And yet, she still hadn’t made an appearance.

Her cries became louder and even more insistent.  I was starting to worry that she was hurt or sick or trapped somewhere.

And then, I spotted her.  She was downstairs in the finished basement.  She was looking at something by the bar area, and I thought she had perhaps cornered a spider.

“Lucy,” I said, pounding down the stairs.

She walked a few feet to me and then plopped down on the floor, crying still and rolling around on her back, showing me her belly.

I gave her a vigorous belly rub.

“What is going on with you?” I asked her.

She stood back up and walked back over to the bar, still crying.

And now I could see, there was something on the floor.  I flipped on the light and finally saw what had Lucy so excited.

Lucy had caught her first mouse.

The mouse was very small and very cute and still alive.  With the help of a Tupperware container and a paper plate, I managed to trap it, so I could take it outside.

As I carried the mouse up the stairs, though, I realized that I had caught a bit of its tail under the edge of the Tupperware.  I apologized to the mouse.  “I know it hurts,” I said.  “I am so sorry.  Just hang with me one more minute.  I’m getting you back outside.  It’s going to be okay.  I know you’re afraid.  But it’s going to be okay.”

Outside, I found a small pile of golden leaves, dry and crackling.  I set the plate down and took off the Tupperware.  The mouse sat up, nose and whiskers twitching and then it took a few tentative steps off the plate.  A second later, he found a hole in the leaves and vanished.

I am sitting here writing this just before 3 am in the early morning hours following the presidential election.  I can’t sleep.  And at some point, when you can’t sleep, you might as well get up and try to be productive.  So, I got up, took some vitamins, ate some sugar and drank some water.  I do believe proper hydration is the key to everything … and also chocolate.

No matter how the election turned out, a number of people were going to be left feeling frightened for themselves, for their loved ones, for the state of the world.  In many ways, we are, right now, a lot like that mouse Lucy caught.  We are not the mouse, on the floor, playing dead, hoping the cat will get bored and walk away.  Rather, we are the mouse I carried from the basement, and up the stairs and out into the woods.  We are the mouse on a journey we did not plan.  We have no idea where we are going and we are terrified and shaken as to what the future holds.

This is life, quite frankly. 

Our hope, though, rests in the ever-living and ever-loving God.  Much as I carried the mouse to safety, God carries us, always. 

The other day, I was watching TV and like many people today, I watch with the closed-captioning on and I was struck that during a particularly meaningful part of the show, as the music swelled, the closed-captioning read, “Hopeful music playing.”

It could have just said “music playing” but it added an adjective, “hopeful.”

And I wondered to myself what does hopeful music sound like?

What does hope sound like?

I bet it sounds different for each of us.

Like for a boxer, beaten and bloody, hope may sound like the bell ringing out the end of the round, right before he passes out.

Sometimes for me, hope sounds like my cat, Pippin, sitting on my chest, purring loudly.  Hope in that case, is not just a sound but a feeling too.  His purring rumbles inside of me.

Perhaps for that mouse yesterday, hope was the rustling sound the leaves made as he scurried to safety.

Perhaps for you, hope today is the sound of my voice in your head as you read this, a voice telling you, “I know you’re afraid.  It’s going to be okay.”

Perhaps hope is from today’s reading from the Wisdom of Ben Sira when we are reminded in Ecclesiasticus 43:27, “We could say more but could never say enough; let the final word be: ‘He is the all.’”

God is the all.

And we are blessed to be held by Him.

We are blessed to be carried by Him.

We are blessed even when our little hearts race and our whiskers twitch.

We are blessed to live in hope.

Always.

Amen.