A Home For Hope
I was asked to write a poem on the theme of hope for the Focolare Movement’s United World Week 2020. It strikes me that hope is a risky business these days when the dominant narratives can be all about despair. It begged the question of me, ‘do I dare to hope?’ Here is the resulting poem.
A Home For Hope
We are in an upper room
Doors locked for fear
Of infection
Prisoners of pandemic distance
The future itself seeming more distant
Than ever
Dare we hope?
In these times of lockdown
And meltdown
We hear
Hope has no home here
And
Hope has no home here
Save for the home we give it
Do we, in the darkness of our worries,
Dare to open the doors in our hearts
And let the light in?
Dare we hope?
A good man said one time
Speaking of a better man, that
“He is the same today, tomorrow and always”
He is the same before pandemics,
During pandemics
And He will be the same after
There is the light
The key to open the doors of our hearts
This is the home for our hope
That there will be an after-pandemic time
And that He will be there
Having travelled the road with us
Dare we hope?
For if not us,
Then who?
Who will carry the light to all the nations?
Who will give hope a home?
Who will tell the truth?
We are never abandoned, alone
We are never beaten
The story does not end in darkness
But in wonderful light
And what that light will illuminate!
In the after-pandemic times
We will see like never before
The rights and the wrongs
The way will be illuminated, golden
The Way enlivened
And we will grieve, yes
Those who have gone before us
And in their honour build
A home for hope
A home for all
A world of one-ness and unity
Dare we hope?
Dare we not?
2 Comments
John Hennebry
I am challenged by this Hope of the Upper Room…How scary it is when the time comes to leave and how comfortable we can get even in our own fear and dread. The known and the unknown…
Theresa Kearney
Yes ! we have fear of now, fear of the the future but we need to have and hold on to hope for our children, grandchildren and this generation watching how we are coping in the face of an invisible war.
We clapped for our soldiers (key workers) the children drew rainbows of hope. I like many others have crochet rainbows of hope for every home in our family. To keep hope alive, I suggested we bring these rainbows out every Christmas and hang them up to remember our heroes NHS and to keep hope in their children’s hearts each time they see a rainbow in the sky.
Our grandparents fought physically in wars to keep hope for us and it worked. We now owe it to all the generations coming after us to never give up hope.
Showing our hope and hopefully hiding our despair we will pass HOPE down just as we watched it passed down to us.
Your poem is excellent Jim. A massive task you took on with hope of doing justice to all our hopes. You did a great job as always. God bless how your mind works. Xx 🌈🌈🌈 We hope and we pray.