in the words of kenneth grahame’s Mole:

“oh, my.”

we’re about to hurtle into another week, and i just have to take a moment to breathe in the bracing october air. i’ve been thinking a lot about hope recently. in what objects do i place my hope? what does it feel like to truly hope? have i been confusing it with other emotions or perspectives? take optimism. which, incidentally, is as much a part of me as my little Geiger nose. it means i look at things and think, “that’s pretty peachy. i can handle that.” but hope is the substance of things yet unseen; hope is believing that things will be peachy when they look anything but. if everything is going swimmingly, there is no need for hope.

of course, everything this semester hasn’t gone swimmingly, and thus i was thrilled (and a little bit tickled at just how… funny God is) when the pastor at mt. ararat baptist announced his sermon topic for last night’s service: hope. and let me tell you, last night’s service was both a kick in the pants and a sweet premonition of the eternal John 17 moment known as Heaven. mt. ararat is a predominantly african-american church, whose building sits in the heart of one of pittsburgh’s grimiest neighborhoods and whose congregation literally shakes the balconies with their singing. i kept thinking of a similar experience mr. roddy had, which he told us made him feel like “such a white boy.” now, i can do some serious clapping and toe-tapping, and i can belt out “leaning on the everlasting arms” with the best of them. but i have never experienced a sermon so peppered with heartfelt commentary from the brothers and sisters surrounding me. “yes!” “hallelujah!” “come on, pastor, come on!” and whereas i generally respond to a convicting statement with a barely audible “mm-hmm”, these believers would leap to their feet and stretch out their arms to heaven whenever the pastor drove home a point. it was fantastic. and while the sermon didn’t add much to my head knowledge of hope (it’s not really a difficult concept to wrap one’s mind around), the whole service showed me what it means to live hope. amen. 

and there were so many other blessings this weekend as well. on thursday nick and i took a beautiful drive to see the changing leaves (his idea!! the little romantic stinker), and stopped at the outlet stores to buy some much-needed dress clothes. on friday, jon, liz & i trotted up to amy’s house to see garrett play his trombone in the riverside marching band (and to shake our heads as riverside beat the opposing team, 69-14). then we got milkshakes and bratwurst at the place amy used to work, and came home to be stuffed with pepperoni bread by mrs. boots and to dig through her boxes of fabric to look for halloween costumes. as it turned out, jon found a flowery piece of fabulosity that he might turn into a scarf, and i found the darlingest yellow fabric with chubby lambs dancing all over it, which amy bequeathed to me with express instructions to use it for my future babies. and saturday, we went to a fantastic little coffee shop and church and then amelia and i had a proper pirate wenches’ night out. made much better by the fact that we were all bundled up in our coats and scarves like sensible folk, instead of half-dressed like the silly halloweeners.

and so, here comes another week. i hope it’s a good one.