December 2, 2024 • 43 mins
Have you ever wondered how hope can be both a gentle feather and a gritty sewer rat? That's exactly what we explore in this thought-provoking episode of the Expansionist Podcast. We start with two powerful poems: Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the Thing with Feathers" and Caitlin Sudea's contemporary reimagining, "Hope is Not a Bird, Emily, it's a Sewer Rat." Through this poetic conversation, we unravel the complex, multifaceted nature of hope and its significance in both privileged lives and those on society's fringes. As Advent unfolds, we question the limitations we often place on its potential, urging listeners to embrace this time as one of genuine transformation and profound connection.
We delve deeper into how adversity sharpens the need for hope and how privilege might cloud its importance. Drawing wisdom from St. Paul and the life of Jesus, we highlight the power of sharing hope, particularly during times of darkness and renewal. Personal stories illuminate how relationships sustain hope, showcasing the delicate interplay between hope, trust, love, and faith. By embracing moments of intentional connection, we explore how hope can be shared, transferred, and ultimately, how it can become a catalyst for personal growth and communal strength. Join us as we invite you to slow down, listen deeply, and discover how nurturing hope can lead to rest, renewal, and unexpected growth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with
Shelley Shepard and HeatherDrake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Greetings Heather Drake, it'sgood to see you today.
Greetings Shelley Shepard, I amoverjoyed to be with you and
(00:25):
have a chance to have aconversation about things that
we love, things that we'relearning, things that we are
embodying, and this is anawesome season we are
approaching and I have a lot ofthoughts about it.
I'm excited to share them.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I know you do, I know you do.
I used to call you the lovequeen, but I think I'm going to
change it to the advent queennow.
Well, at least advent for now.
I still want to be the lovequeen, forever and ever.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Okay, but maybe love can be folded into advent, but
advent is so hopeful to me.
Advent has so much promise init.
Advent is, I think that it's wehaven't unwrapped enough of the
gift that it is for us toreally see how transformative
that practice can be.
So, anyway, I'm hopeful today.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, me too, and I'm grateful that we are able to
have these conversations.
I was talking to a friend theother day and just realizing
that there's so much freedom inbeing able to just be yourself
with someone that understands alittle bit about your journey
(01:34):
and the road that you'vetraveled and you know the places
that you've stood or fallen.
You know there's just somethingholy about that and I think you
and I are discovering thatthese conversations, that these
expansionist places that we'restepping are.
(01:54):
Some people would say, well,that's like some kind of
minefield that you two arewalking in, but really it's this
beautiful conversation that weget to have about what's
happening in our lives, whatbrings us hope, what expands
love, what is in our hands today, and I'm so grateful for that.
(02:18):
So thank you for being here andcontinuing to have these
conversations.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So you shared a poem with me this week and I wanted
you to read it, because then Ishared a poem with you and I
think it's a perfect place forus to start this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, it is Part of the conversation that we want to
talk for Edwin.
We're going to invite Ms EmilyDickinson into our conversation
today with her hope poem.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers.
Hope is the thing with feathersthat perches in the soul and
sings the tune without the wordsand never stops at all.
(03:01):
And sweetest in the gale isheard, and sore must be the
storm that could abash thelittle bird that kept so many
warm.
I've heard it in the chillestland and on the strangest sea,
yet never in extremity.
It asked a crumb of me.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
We are not the first people to listen to those words
and be inspired by them To sayyes, hope.
That feels so delicate andsometimes even out of reach.
But you had shared that poemwith me and I had memorized a
(03:47):
number of Emily Dickinson'spoems when I was much younger.
But I have recently found apoem and it's also called Hope,
and I believe it's in responseto that particular poem and it's
by Caitlin Sudea and it'scalled Hope is Not a Bird, emily
, it's a Sewerette.
(04:09):
Hope is not a thing withfeathers that comes home to
roost when you need it the most.
Hope is an ugly thing withteeth and claws and patchy fur
that's seen some shit.
It's what arrives and thrivesin the discards and survives in
the ugliest parts of our world,able to find a way to go on when
(04:32):
nothing else can even find away in.
It's the gritty, nasty littlecarrier of such diseases as
optimism, persistence,perseverance and joy,
transmittable as it drags itstail across your path and bites
you in the ass.
Hope is not some delicate,beautiful bird, emily.
(04:54):
It's a lowly little sewer ratthat snorts pesticides like they
were lines of coke and stillshows up on time to work the
next day, looking no worse forwear.
This is what hope looks like.
It's mangy.
Hope looks like a passing sewerrat, not an Instagram sewer rat
(05:14):
that does clever things.
Oh, my goodness, patchy furclawing sneaking in where you
can't find it.
And I was thinking what anincredible beautiful thought
that hope could sneak up on you.
That hope could withstand verydifficult situations.
That hope can be a beacon forus, a light for us.
(05:36):
Hope, yeah, gives us theability to keep living and keep
thriving when the rest of theworld says no.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Mm-hmm, I love the metaphors from both Emily.
And did you say, caitlin?
Yeah, these two pictures ofwhat hope can be right.
Yeah, yeah, be right.
And I think that that's therealism of Advent in my thoughts
(06:09):
is, on one hand, it is thisbird, this thing with feathers
that, no matter you know, thestorm by day or the calm at
night, or reverse, right, it'sthere Like hope is perched like
a bird.
But then here's Caitlin, no, no, no, no.
Hope is not a bird, it's asewer rat and it's snorting
(06:34):
pesticides and showing up thenext day at work Like this
vastness, right, this vastnessof hope.
I think sometimes we do aspeople of faith.
I wonder if we do a disserviceto the sacredness of hope by
making it just a candle that welight on the first week of
(06:58):
Advent.
Tell me your thoughts on that.
Is it a disservice, or are weshining that candle in the sewer
as well as next to thismetaphorical bird?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I like the idea of the bird, but I also in my own
life have found hope to be inthe form of the sewer rat, and
I'm confident that the peoplethat dwell in the sewers or that
have been pushed into themargins, those people very often
have a lot of hope, hope thatthings will change.
But then there are people whoare recently in those margins
(07:31):
and they need the hope of otherswho have been there, and so I
see the need and the beauty inrecognizing both of those ways
that hope appears.
And I think that sometimesprivilege keeps us at a place
where we don't maybe appreciatehope as much.
We have a perceived privilegeor a perceived perception,
(07:55):
depending on where we are in theworld, and I think that
struggle or loss or trauma,difficulty, pain, all those
things, when things have beenripped from our hands, when
things have been taken from usor we've been excluded from
places and things, that's whenhope is needed.
And so sometimes, when we'reoblivious because of our
(08:19):
privilege or we're blindedbecause of our privilege, we may
not see the essential lightthat comes from hope.
And perhaps that, maybe that'swhat the Spirit is waking us up
to, you know, changing ourperspective and being able to
say, you know, not only, if youhave a hope, be ready to share
that hope.
In fact, one of the things thatSt Paul said was be ready to
(08:42):
give a reason for the hope thatis in you.
And I wonder if people aren'thaving conversations about hope,
if maybe they're not veryhopeful, if maybe what they
believe or what they talk aboutis so negative that it is devoid
of hope, and so maybe startingconversations about what am I
hoping for, what am I expectingout of my relationships, out of
(09:08):
the places that I'm in or beingable to offer to the world?
Where's the hope?
Do I know it?
Am I the rat?
Am I the person that's supposedto be bringing you hope with my
patchy fur?
Am I the person who is bringingthose good, bringing you hope
with my patchy fur?
Am I the person who is, youknow, bringing those good
tidings of comfort and joy, oram I supposed to even?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
yeah, just look for it you make such a great um
point more than a point, um,when, when we, when you say that
we've come through places whereboth of us have experienced, uh
(09:53):
, a dark night of the soul or alack of hope, or something
stopped us in our tracks and wedidn't really know how we were
going to get around that,something stopped us in our
tracks and we didn't really knowhow we were going to get around
that.
And, um, I just wonder sometimesif, when we have no hope and
(10:14):
then we make it through thatplace of hopelessness and we
continue on with our life andmaybe there's another space
where there's a lack of hope orsomething that we couldn't get
around, do we look back at thefirst time that hope showed up,
(10:35):
which emily dickinson?
Emily dickinson says that it isa bird.
It's like a bird perched in oursoul, like it's always present.
They're singing, but maybe wecan't hear it, maybe we don't
want to hear it, we can't findthe bird or whatever, but it's
always there.
But when we get to that secondor third or fourth place where
(10:57):
there's no hope and we look backto the places where we have
overcome or we have walkedthrough that gate of hell or
that portal of disconnection orrejection or whatever the word
might be for that emotion?
Is it that we forget and thenwe just offer blind hope based
(11:22):
on something we find in First orSecond Testament Like how is
hope rendered in our culture andin our times for people that
have forgotten what hope lookslike?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I think that it's rendered many ways or it can be,
but I think that, as a peoplewho are following the way of
Jesus, who showed us into love,I think that Jesus' whole
humanity and only what we see asthe witness of other people who
lived alongside of Jesus.
(11:57):
But turning water into wine,that to me is a message of hope.
Raising the dead that's amessage of hope.
Curing leprosy that's a messageof hope.
And so I think hope looks likemany different things to many
different people, based on theirneeds.
This was years ago, but I waslistening to someone's pain and,
(12:21):
because I had been through asimilar place, I was trying to
be very mindful not to say, oh,I've been there or I understand,
because I think that can bevery dismissive.
And so I was being careful tolisten and not to assume that I
knew exactly what.
But when they explained it andI asked the question, tell me
(12:44):
more?
And they began to explain it, Iknew that I had been in those
dark places with them.
And that's one of the reasonswhy Advent speaks so beautifully
to me, because it is in thepractice of being in the dark
and being able to see there'spotential that birth would be
happening, that there'shappening that darkness is not
(13:05):
just a prison, that it is awomb-like experience, that we
don't always have to be bright,shiny and growing, that there
are seasons of rest and renewalthat come to us in the darkness,
but, ultimately, that thepresence of the Spirit is with
us in everything.
So that's one of the thingsthat I love about practicing in
Advent is practicing the hope ofthe darkness that it will not
(13:28):
always be like this, that therewill be a way to function.
And the Advent in the darknessasks us to slow down.
We don't go as quickly when wecan't see something, and I think
that slowing then leads us intocontemplation and leads us into
places where the spirit canabsolutely be transformative.
(13:48):
But I was listening to thisperson's story and I recognized
that they had no hope that thiswould ever change.
And it was not just somethingthat I knew in my gut, it was
something that I heard them sayrepeatedly this will not change,
this will not change, this willnot change, this is never.
And I said I have a questionfor you Is there any trust that
(14:08):
you have in me as a person?
And they said yes, absolutely.
And I said well, I will carrythe hope for you.
You don't have to have it, I'llhave it.
Just stay close to me, juststay in this relationship and
I'll carry the hope for youuntil you feel like you can take
it back.
And they agreed.
And I will tell you that it'sbeen more than 10 years and they
(14:29):
have their own hope now and Icarried it for them for a while.
But that sometimes that's whatwe do for people too, that we
ourselves stay hopeful, that wedon't.
I saw my friend's pain and Isaw the trauma and it was real,
but recognizing as much as thereis darkness and there is holy
in the darkness there is aninvitation into the life, in the
(14:52):
spirit, the spirit that hoversover the chaos and that invites
us to co-create this beautifulkingdom, this new world.
This other way of thinking andmaybe the other way of thinking
has to be we take ideas likehope is a beautiful, fragile
(15:13):
bird and we look at her and go,oh, she also might be a
patchy-furred sewer rat.
You know like there is hopethat things don't stay the same
and yet there is hope that whatwill be rebuilt will be
something far more glorious thanthe first.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I love that story.
Thank you for sharing that andthe invitation to practice
holding hope.
Like I hadn't thought of itthat way before, perhaps.
Holding hope Like I hadn'tthought of it that way before,
perhaps.
But if we could hold hope forsomeone that has none this
season, what would it look like?
And is it easier for us whohave hope now?
(15:59):
Maybe we have more hope than wehad last year, maybe we have
less hope than we had last year,maybe we have less hope than we
had last year, but is itpossible for us to practice that
and offer that to someone whomay need that this season?
I love that.
I love that thought.
I'm just sitting with that andholding it.
(16:20):
I don't think I've ever carriedhope for someone Like.
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I was particularly aware of the fact that I, in my
expression or what I'veexperienced, hope is the thing
that lights, the spark.
It is like the little lightthat shows us how to get to the
greater light.
And so what I recognized was myfriend was in a very fragile
(16:50):
space.
To be somewhere without anyhope feels like you're.
You know that's an open doortoward depression or toward
further trauma or for further,you know, a deepening of a grief
or of a lament.
And so, because I was aware thatI was the person holding the
(17:10):
hope, it made me moreintentional with the connection
with that person.
You know I didn't expect thatperson to reach out and call and
or make forward motion that Irecognized I was holding the
hope.
Sometimes hope motivates us andif that person had lacked
(17:31):
motivation toward, you know,progress or toward things that
are ahead, I recognized that itwas going to be through
relationship and it really meantto me very much.
I've done this many times withmy small children where if they
have need of something, I'veheld whatever they felt like
they needed or they wanted todiscard, but I've held it in my
hand and then I just stayedclose to them and I think that
(17:53):
connection and closeness is theway that we can hold someone's
hope that especially in ourworld and how we experience
community.
Community is not justgeographically set to one small
space anymore, you know.
We can be in community withpeople who are very different
from us, but also in variedplaces than us.
(18:15):
And so, recognizing howimportant that connection is and
making ways to stay close tosomeone intentionally, and
eventually, she said, because wetalked about it, she said I
don't think you held my hope.
She said I think your hoperubbed off on me, and so,
whether it was her hope thatI've held for her, or whether I
(18:37):
had enough hope to share thatthat kind of connection can
inspire, I guess I believe thateveryone has a hope, because I
believe that the Spirit lives inus and the Spirit is hopeful,
but sometimes we don't see.
And sometimes things haven'tbeen unveiled yet or unwrapped
(19:00):
yet, or there is such a painthat we can't see past that pain
.
But I am of the belief thatevery person has a hope, because
the light of Christ that's inall of us.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I'm thinking about something that you know in
my own experience, where it wasdark or there were moments in
my history that I didn't think Iwould ever pass through it.
And I've often held this titlefor a book and I've shared it
(19:34):
with a few people not manypeople, but this title of the
Three Times that God Disappeared, the three times that God
disappeared.
And in holding that over theyears, those three particular
markers in my life, one of thecommon threads that I've noticed
is that trust was broken.
(19:55):
That trust caused me to ormistrust.
A lack of trust caused me to ormistrust.
A lack of trust made the hopemeter fall and decline, and I
wonder if you have anyexperience with that.
Can we hope without trust?
(20:21):
Can we hope without love?
Can we hope without faith?
Can we hope without faith?
Can we hope without peace?
Are these Advent themes thatwe're getting ready to
experience all interchangeableand interconnected in a way that
brings us into the light, outof the dark place, into a place
of hope, peace, faith and love?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
It's a powerful question that you ask, and I
certainly wouldn't considermyself an expert in hope, but I
would tell you that I have atleast an advanced degree in
holding onto hope.
I feel like I have a lot ofgrit when it comes to holding on
to hope, and I think that hopeis different than luck or
(21:11):
different than I think you usedthe words earlier a blind hope.
I think it's essential to knowwhere my hope is like when you
have a grappling hook, if youknow where that hook is in or
the strength of the rock that itis connected to.
I feel for myself, I don'talways have hope that people
(21:33):
will change.
I have experience that saysthat they don't.
But my hope is not necessarilyin that people will change, but
my hope is in the fact that loveis eternal and that God one day
will right every wrong and thatone day all the things that
have harmed will be healed, andone day.
(21:54):
And so my hope is notnecessarily in a particular time
, but in the eternal and in theeternal one, and not in the
sweet by and by particular time,but in the eternal and in the
eternal one and not in the sweetby and by.
But what that does for my soulto be able to say my hope is in
God, my hope is in love, my hopeis in the power of spirit, who
creates from the chaos, andsometimes, when I see chaos,
(22:18):
even naming it as look at thisbeautiful place for the spirit
to work, look what we havecreated in our world, and then
the mantra of come, holy Spirit,come.
And what does that mean for theHoly Spirit to come?
Not that I get out of the way,but if I'm inviting the Spirit
that I'm inviting, use my hands,use my words, use my life, use
(22:38):
my imagination to bring thekingdom that we're asking for,
the kingdom of God that is sofull of love and goodness and
the prayer that we've beenpraying, as it is in heaven, may
it be on earth.
I want to see that and I believein the hope that is the promise
to come.
It's yeah for me.
(23:00):
What do I have my hope in?
I am disappointed when I put myhope in someone to keep their
word.
Yeah, that has disappointed me.
But when my hope is in theeternal and again, not in the
afterlife the eternal that ispresent, the spirit that is
present.
When my hope is in the spiritwho breathes life into dead
(23:20):
things, who wakens the seeds andbrings the springtime, who
tells the leaves to drop and totake a rest, you know, my hope
is that resurrection spirit isin the spirit of the divine, who
calls us all into oneness andwholeness.
That's a beautiful thought.
We want to pause and take amoment and let you know how glad
(23:43):
we are that you've joined us.
If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a
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Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's interesting that you bring Spirit into this
conversation, not that she's notalways present with us, but
that was one of the transitionsfor me when I felt hope slipping
away.
There was a particular verse inFirst Testament, in the Psalms,
(24:23):
I think, around 25 somewhere, Ican't remember, but it's close
to 25.
I can't remember, but it'sclose to 25.
That I put my trust, it says,in God, and I changed it to
spirit.
I put my trust in you, spirit,I put my trust in my soul is
(24:58):
entrusted to spirit and I'mtrusting you, spirit, with my
life.
It's a bad version of the text,but my point is I had to change
hope.
I couldn't, in my particularcase, keep walking the same
(25:19):
faith path, even until Iconnected somehow differently
with the light that you'redescribing Like.
I needed to have a differentexperience and I needed to find
a way.
I believed that God existed, Ibelieved that spirit existed,
that Jesus was at the center ofmy faith, but the hope of what
(25:48):
even Advent is about, of whateven Advent is about, this
coming of light, of this newbirth, of this freshness, seemed
so far away like I couldn'teven touch it, I couldn't even
imagine, and so I just want toencourage people today that
(26:11):
might be listening to this isit's a real thing not to have
hope.
You know, it is a very realthing not to have it, and I was
reading something the other dayI don't know if I have the
(26:38):
author's name Bruce Fellersuggests that we undergo
meaningful transitions onceevery 12 to 18 months, and this
spoke in a way to me that saysI'm either going into transition
, I'm either in the middle of atransition or I'm coming out of
one.
Right, that's a lot of changein our lives.
(26:58):
If we think about every 12 to18 months, there's some kind of
transition for us, and so, as Ihold hope today, I'm thinking of
it in similar ways that I'mentering Advent.
I'm entering this season, thisfirst theme of Advent called
(27:26):
hope, and I feel like I'm at thebeginning of something that I
haven't yet experienced.
It hasn't been birthed in meyet.
It's coming right, but you andI have been through many Advents
.
Yes, year after year after year, or season after season, or
time after time, advent meaningthis Christmas season.
And yet here we are, inexpectation, in this excitement
(27:55):
of waiting.
So is patience a part of hope?
Do I need to wait?
Do I need to linger.
Do I need to hover?
Do I need to be still?
Do I need to hover?
Do I need to be still Like as Ienter this place of light and
renewal?
If I'm seeking hope, what am Idoing in this waiting period, in
(28:20):
the now and the not yet?
What's happening I had for youtoday is what does centering
your hope on love for God orothers mean to you?
Like when you center your hopeof love towards God or towards
(28:43):
other people, what does thatmean in your life?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Well, personally, it means I love Advent because it's
an invitation to slow, and it'san invitation to claim the
sacredness and practicesacredness in every season of
our life, not just in thesunshine, not just in where we
are experiencing growth, butwhere we are experiencing what
may to some people, and even toourselves, if we're looking,
(29:09):
feel like nothing is happening,nothing is changing.
Well, this might be a winterseason where we accept the
slowing that creation offers us,the invitation to rest in the
fact that god has put beautifulthings there.
But darkness, um, doessomething powerful to our sights
(29:30):
it, it widens our eyes.
We begin to see glimmers ofthings when we turn all the
lights off, or when light is.
There are the lights that wecan't see during the day, but at
nighttime we're able to seetheir little glimmer or shimmer,
and sometimes those are thevery stars that lead us to a
better place, to a newexperience.
And so sometimes the dark isabsolutely necessary to increase
(29:54):
our vision.
And, in fact, my children lovepirates, and so they remind me
all the time that there's aparticular pirate who is known
to always have worn an eye patch, and that way, when he was
fighting someone and it got dark, he could just switch, because
I was always used to being inthe dark and he saw out of both
(30:15):
eyes, but he kept one indarkness, so that he would
always have the advantage.
And I was thinking about theidea of what would that look
like for us to have the abilityto recognize sacred in the
bright, sunny places, but alsorecognize sacred in the damp and
in the dark and in the placesthat feel like the earth Like.
Maybe it feels like a grave,maybe it feels like the seed
(30:38):
that is buried, but there's holyin the hope of all of that.
And you asked me where I beginwith that.
To me it begins with myunderstanding that I agree with
you and agree with the psalmistwho said my hope is in the Lord,
my hope is in God and in yourrendition, my hope is in spirit,
god being spirit.
(30:58):
But sometimes it is just asmuch as saying maybe my view of
God needs to be changed.
Maybe I need a different ideaof who God is.
Maybe I have an image of Godthat does not line up with the
loving, beautiful, expansivespirit that God actually is.
Maybe my perception needs to beexpanded, and I am excited
(31:23):
about the fact that Adventoffers that to us, in fact,
anytime that our eyes needcorrection, when you go to the
eye doctor and they dilate youreyes, they widen that pupil, but
they're like you're going to besensitive to bright lights.
You know, wear these darkglasses for a while until the
healing begins.
And so I think sometimes thatthere is healing that actually
(31:45):
begins in the dark, that thereis goodness and wholeness that
begins in the slowing.
It begins in waiting for thelight, and you mentioned Advent
just now, at the beginning ofthis particular topic.
And I just go back to my holyimagination with Mary.
There's no way she could haveimagined Jesus and his impact in
(32:05):
the world, but she had avisitation, she had an
experience, and in herunderstanding she was asked to
co-create.
The Spirit said are you up tothis?
We have a plan.
And her response was let it be.
I mean, she couldn't have hadthe whole thing figured out and
(32:27):
we are not given the same thing.
But I think that the invitationis that the Christ is going to
be birthed in all of us, that wewould also respond to any
prompting of the Spirit withokay, let it be, be it unto me,
according to your word, becauseI can trust and I have hope that
what you're creating now andwhat you're inviting me into is
(32:50):
good.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yes, that what you're creating now and what you're
inviting me into is good, mm-hmm, yes, yes, there's something
that I'm trying to pull up inthe back of my mind that I read
a couple of days ago.
Someone else's words pull up inin the back of my mind that I
(33:13):
read a couple of days ago,someone else's words um, when
we're talking about this seasonof, how does hope change us in
these transitions of life, ortransitions of time and space,
how does hope change us?
Because that's really whatwe're talking about is we're
(33:40):
hoping that there's change.
We're hoping that there's morelove for people to be healed.
We're hoping that war ends.
(34:05):
We're hoping that globalwarming that seems to be melting
Every part of our world andearth is somehow turned off.
(34:26):
We're hoping that ourneighbor's son or daughter comes
home from war.
We're hoping.
We're hoping for some kind ofchange, some visible, tangible
way to see light and lovebreaking into the world.
And so we keep hoping, andsometimes we have to carry that
hope as you just described to us.
We have to carry it for someone.
(34:49):
But one of the things I heardthe other day was this and you
use the word co-create with thedivine, like that's how hope
(35:21):
breaks in, and that's how Jesusbreaks in to this season.
Right, because Mary had hopedthat this angel was telling her
the truth.
She trusted this voice thatmaybe she didn't know or didn't
understand or never had seen orheard, but there was something
(35:45):
that she held to as shetransitioned through that dark
place where she knew there wasgoing to be rumors and gnashing
of teeth against her for allsorts of reasons, but she
remained faithful to the divinepartnership that she was being
called to.
And it sounds like this divinepartnership, divine human
(36:08):
partnership that you spoke of,where you carried hope for
someone that could not carry itfor themselves.
That's the light of advent,that's the, that's the light of
hope.
That that I see, that I canactually physically do in a
season and in a world wherepeople are struggling to find it
(36:30):
.
It's not that it doesn't exist.
Hope is here.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And I think that hope is cultivated through
conversations, hope iscultivated through actions, hope
is cultivated when wepractically love our neighbors
and we love ourselves and welove the people around us.
And we cultivate hope through,I think, a life of repentance.
(36:55):
And in this repentance thatJesus offered us, it was a life
of changing the way that youthink and this idea that hope
stands in the face of fear, hopestands in the face of betrayal,
in the face of depression, inthe place of all of these things
(37:16):
, and says there is another way,there's a better way, there is
a brighter light, there is ahealing that is offered for all
brokenness.
And we just recently had thisconversation because I was
describing something that was byone of the prophets in the
First Testament, where it saidthat one day you will no longer
train your sons for war and youwill no longer use swords
(37:41):
against each other, but you'llbeat them into plowshares.
And I was sitting across thetable from a woman who said I
cannot imagine a world withoutwar.
And so I paused and I said well, well, I can let me tell you
what it would be like.
And I said I'd be interested inyour input.
And we actually paused and wesaid what would it be like for
people not to resort to violencewhen they are angry?
What would it be like when ouranger is so sacred and so
(38:06):
righteous that it only propelsus to do good and not harm?
What is it going to be like?
And so, taking a moment toactually allow our imagination
to be filled with the Spirit,what would it look like for a
world with no war?
Shelley, that's possible, yeah,but we have to imagine it first
.
We have to give ourselvespermission to say what would it
(38:29):
look like for us to haveconversations when we had
disagreements, and notimmediately cut people out or,
because we disagree with them,not hear them, or, because we
disagree with them, defame them,but to be able to say if I
believe that there is apotential for a world without
war, then what am I doing to bea peacemaker?
(38:51):
What am I doing to change theway that people's thoughts are?
And I don't again.
It can be as simple as aconversation.
It can be us expressing ourintention through a podcast.
It can be reading poetry thatexpands us.
It can be baking for a neighboror sitting with someone who
doesn't have hope and holdinghope for them, but it also to me
(39:15):
, hope is connected very deeplyto relationship.
It's connected very deeply toconnection, to what does it look
like to recognize that the bodyof Christ that is here on the
earth today, that we are all sogenuinely connected to each
other and that we recognize ourconnectionness to the whole, to
(39:40):
what love is intending to dohere, how the kingdom wants to
break through, and Jesus's wordsto us were that it's so close,
it's even in your mouth.
I want the kingdom that is inthe atmosphere around us to be
ones of love, and so I havegreat imagination for how hope
propels us into loving action.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
You have a hopeful imagination.
That's what you have hopeful,and I have hopeful thoughts and
I have well as you're as you're,as you're saying these things,
there, there's so many littleplaces that I want to jump with
you and I know we don't havetime for that today.
People that you know, people offaith, and people that are not
(40:53):
even part of churches are, youknow, just seeing, for example,
faith practices that go againsteven a hopeful imagination that
you just described.
And so when you say that, I'mlike I can see a world, I can
imagine a world where love isthis expansive blanket that
covers us all, and then I canimagine somebody on the other
(41:14):
side of that blanket saying youknow, you're taking up too much
of this blanket right now andhave many reasons why they don't
want to share the blanket.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
But, shelley, do we really have to share the blanket
?
We'll just get two.
We believe in a God who is morethan enough.
Yes, yes, we can imagineanother way of doing it.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
There is this kinship that we long for right.
I do believe that there is this.
You say kingdom, I say kingdomor queendom, even, you know,
even bring the queens and thekings into this space, where
hope is the breath of life.
Yeah, hope is the breath oflife.
(41:58):
I would love to be part of thatworld.
Let's make it.
Yes, let's do.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I want to read a prayer as I enter the dark, by
Patti Joy Posen.
I am humbled.
An invitation to welcomedarkness knocks at my door.
Divine Mother, be with me as Igreet the darkness.
May the cloak of peace and hopewrap around me.
May I listen to the voices, seethe beauty in knowing, hear
(42:33):
with an open heart, feel thecaress of darkness, touch and
not be afraid, and emerge abovethe murky waters and bloom with
the beauty of a lotus.
And as the rhythm of joy movesthrough my body.
May I, as a butterfly, knowlightness of being and be
(42:55):
renewed.
Amen, amen.
It was our joy to have youlisten to our conversation today
.
If you would like furtherinformation or for more content,
visit us atexpansionisttheologycom.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with
Shelley Shepard and HeatherDrake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Greetings Heather Drake, it'sgood to see you today.
Greetings Shelley Shepard, I amoverjoyed to be with you and
(00:25):
have a chance to have aconversation about things that
we love, things that we'relearning, things that we are
embodying, and this is anawesome season we are
approaching and I have a lot ofthoughts about it.
I'm excited to share them.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I know you do, I know you do.
I used to call you the lovequeen, but I think I'm going to
change it to the advent queennow.
Well, at least advent for now.
I still want to be the lovequeen, forever and ever.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Okay, but maybe love can be folded into advent, but
advent is so hopeful to me.
Advent has so much promise init.
Advent is, I think that it's wehaven't unwrapped enough of the
gift that it is for us toreally see how transformative
that practice can be.
So, anyway, I'm hopeful today.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, me too, and I'm grateful that we are able to
have these conversations.
I was talking to a friend theother day and just realizing
that there's so much freedom inbeing able to just be yourself
with someone that understands alittle bit about your journey
(01:34):
and the road that you'vetraveled and you know the places
that you've stood or fallen.
You know there's just somethingholy about that and I think you
and I are discovering thatthese conversations, that these
expansionist places that we'restepping are.
(01:54):
Some people would say, well,that's like some kind of
minefield that you two arewalking in, but really it's this
beautiful conversation that weget to have about what's
happening in our lives, whatbrings us hope, what expands
love, what is in our hands today, and I'm so grateful for that.
(02:18):
So thank you for being here andcontinuing to have these
conversations.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So you shared a poem with me this week and I wanted
you to read it, because then Ishared a poem with you and I
think it's a perfect place forus to start this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, it is Part of the conversation that we want to
talk for Edwin.
We're going to invite Ms EmilyDickinson into our conversation
today with her hope poem.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers.
Hope is the thing with feathersthat perches in the soul and
sings the tune without the wordsand never stops at all.
(03:01):
And sweetest in the gale isheard, and sore must be the
storm that could abash thelittle bird that kept so many
warm.
I've heard it in the chillestland and on the strangest sea,
yet never in extremity.
It asked a crumb of me.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
We are not the first people to listen to those words
and be inspired by them To sayyes, hope.
That feels so delicate andsometimes even out of reach.
But you had shared that poemwith me and I had memorized a
(03:47):
number of Emily Dickinson'spoems when I was much younger.
But I have recently found apoem and it's also called Hope,
and I believe it's in responseto that particular poem and it's
by Caitlin Sudea and it'scalled Hope is Not a Bird, emily
, it's a Sewerette.
(04:09):
Hope is not a thing withfeathers that comes home to
roost when you need it the most.
Hope is an ugly thing withteeth and claws and patchy fur
that's seen some shit.
It's what arrives and thrivesin the discards and survives in
the ugliest parts of our world,able to find a way to go on when
(04:32):
nothing else can even find away in.
It's the gritty, nasty littlecarrier of such diseases as
optimism, persistence,perseverance and joy,
transmittable as it drags itstail across your path and bites
you in the ass.
Hope is not some delicate,beautiful bird, emily.
(04:54):
It's a lowly little sewer ratthat snorts pesticides like they
were lines of coke and stillshows up on time to work the
next day, looking no worse forwear.
This is what hope looks like.
It's mangy.
Hope looks like a passing sewerrat, not an Instagram sewer rat
(05:14):
that does clever things.
Oh, my goodness, patchy furclawing sneaking in where you
can't find it.
And I was thinking what anincredible beautiful thought
that hope could sneak up on you.
That hope could withstand verydifficult situations.
That hope can be a beacon forus, a light for us.
(05:36):
Hope, yeah, gives us theability to keep living and keep
thriving when the rest of theworld says no.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Mm-hmm, I love the metaphors from both Emily.
And did you say, caitlin?
Yeah, these two pictures ofwhat hope can be right.
Yeah, yeah, be right.
And I think that that's therealism of Advent in my thoughts
(06:09):
is, on one hand, it is thisbird, this thing with feathers
that, no matter you know, thestorm by day or the calm at
night, or reverse, right, it'sthere Like hope is perched like
a bird.
But then here's Caitlin, no, no, no, no.
Hope is not a bird, it's asewer rat and it's snorting
(06:34):
pesticides and showing up thenext day at work Like this
vastness, right, this vastnessof hope.
I think sometimes we do aspeople of faith.
I wonder if we do a disserviceto the sacredness of hope by
making it just a candle that welight on the first week of
(06:58):
Advent.
Tell me your thoughts on that.
Is it a disservice, or are weshining that candle in the sewer
as well as next to thismetaphorical bird?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I like the idea of the bird, but I also in my own
life have found hope to be inthe form of the sewer rat, and
I'm confident that the peoplethat dwell in the sewers or that
have been pushed into themargins, those people very often
have a lot of hope, hope thatthings will change.
But then there are people whoare recently in those margins
(07:31):
and they need the hope of otherswho have been there, and so I
see the need and the beauty inrecognizing both of those ways
that hope appears.
And I think that sometimesprivilege keeps us at a place
where we don't maybe appreciatehope as much.
We have a perceived privilegeor a perceived perception,
(07:55):
depending on where we are in theworld, and I think that
struggle or loss or trauma,difficulty, pain, all those
things, when things have beenripped from our hands, when
things have been taken from usor we've been excluded from
places and things, that's whenhope is needed.
And so sometimes, when we'reoblivious because of our
(08:19):
privilege or we're blindedbecause of our privilege, we may
not see the essential lightthat comes from hope.
And perhaps that, maybe that'swhat the Spirit is waking us up
to, you know, changing ourperspective and being able to
say, you know, not only, if youhave a hope, be ready to share
that hope.
In fact, one of the things thatSt Paul said was be ready to
(08:42):
give a reason for the hope thatis in you.
And I wonder if people aren'thaving conversations about hope,
if maybe they're not veryhopeful, if maybe what they
believe or what they talk aboutis so negative that it is devoid
of hope, and so maybe startingconversations about what am I
hoping for, what am I expectingout of my relationships, out of
(09:08):
the places that I'm in or beingable to offer to the world?
Where's the hope?
Do I know it?
Am I the rat?
Am I the person that's supposedto be bringing you hope with my
patchy fur?
Am I the person who is bringingthose good, bringing you hope
with my patchy fur?
Am I the person who is, youknow, bringing those good
tidings of comfort and joy, oram I supposed to even?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
yeah, just look for it you make such a great um
point more than a point, um,when, when we, when you say that
we've come through places whereboth of us have experienced, uh
(09:53):
, a dark night of the soul or alack of hope, or something
stopped us in our tracks and wedidn't really know how we were
going to get around that,something stopped us in our
tracks and we didn't really knowhow we were going to get around
that.
And, um, I just wonder sometimesif, when we have no hope and
(10:14):
then we make it through thatplace of hopelessness and we
continue on with our life andmaybe there's another space
where there's a lack of hope orsomething that we couldn't get
around, do we look back at thefirst time that hope showed up,
(10:35):
which emily dickinson?
Emily dickinson says that it isa bird.
It's like a bird perched in oursoul, like it's always present.
They're singing, but maybe wecan't hear it, maybe we don't
want to hear it, we can't findthe bird or whatever, but it's
always there.
But when we get to that secondor third or fourth place where
(10:57):
there's no hope and we look backto the places where we have
overcome or we have walkedthrough that gate of hell or
that portal of disconnection orrejection or whatever the word
might be for that emotion?
Is it that we forget and thenwe just offer blind hope based
(11:22):
on something we find in First orSecond Testament Like how is
hope rendered in our culture andin our times for people that
have forgotten what hope lookslike?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I think that it's rendered many ways or it can be,
but I think that, as a peoplewho are following the way of
Jesus, who showed us into love,I think that Jesus' whole
humanity and only what we see asthe witness of other people who
lived alongside of Jesus.
(11:57):
But turning water into wine,that to me is a message of hope.
Raising the dead that's amessage of hope.
Curing leprosy that's a messageof hope.
And so I think hope looks likemany different things to many
different people, based on theirneeds.
This was years ago, but I waslistening to someone's pain and,
(12:21):
because I had been through asimilar place, I was trying to
be very mindful not to say, oh,I've been there or I understand,
because I think that can bevery dismissive.
And so I was being careful tolisten and not to assume that I
knew exactly what.
But when they explained it andI asked the question, tell me
(12:44):
more?
And they began to explain it, Iknew that I had been in those
dark places with them.
And that's one of the reasonswhy Advent speaks so beautifully
to me, because it is in thepractice of being in the dark
and being able to see there'spotential that birth would be
happening, that there'shappening that darkness is not
(13:05):
just a prison, that it is awomb-like experience, that we
don't always have to be bright,shiny and growing, that there
are seasons of rest and renewalthat come to us in the darkness,
but, ultimately, that thepresence of the Spirit is with
us in everything.
So that's one of the thingsthat I love about practicing in
Advent is practicing the hope ofthe darkness that it will not
(13:28):
always be like this, that therewill be a way to function.
And the Advent in the darknessasks us to slow down.
We don't go as quickly when wecan't see something, and I think
that slowing then leads us intocontemplation and leads us into
places where the spirit canabsolutely be transformative.
(13:48):
But I was listening to thisperson's story and I recognized
that they had no hope that thiswould ever change.
And it was not just somethingthat I knew in my gut, it was
something that I heard them sayrepeatedly this will not change,
this will not change, this willnot change, this is never.
And I said I have a questionfor you Is there any trust that
(14:08):
you have in me as a person?
And they said yes, absolutely.
And I said well, I will carrythe hope for you.
You don't have to have it, I'llhave it.
Just stay close to me, juststay in this relationship and
I'll carry the hope for youuntil you feel like you can take
it back.
And they agreed.
And I will tell you that it'sbeen more than 10 years and they
(14:29):
have their own hope now and Icarried it for them for a while.
But that sometimes that's whatwe do for people too, that we
ourselves stay hopeful, that wedon't.
I saw my friend's pain and Isaw the trauma and it was real,
but recognizing as much as thereis darkness and there is holy
in the darkness there is aninvitation into the life, in the
(14:52):
spirit, the spirit that hoversover the chaos and that invites
us to co-create this beautifulkingdom, this new world.
This other way of thinking andmaybe the other way of thinking
has to be we take ideas likehope is a beautiful, fragile
(15:13):
bird and we look at her and go,oh, she also might be a
patchy-furred sewer rat.
You know like there is hopethat things don't stay the same
and yet there is hope that whatwill be rebuilt will be
something far more glorious thanthe first.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I love that story.
Thank you for sharing that andthe invitation to practice
holding hope.
Like I hadn't thought of itthat way before, perhaps.
Holding hope Like I hadn'tthought of it that way before,
perhaps.
But if we could hold hope forsomeone that has none this
season, what would it look like?
And is it easier for us whohave hope now?
(15:59):
Maybe we have more hope than wehad last year, maybe we have
less hope than we had last year,maybe we have less hope than we
had last year, but is itpossible for us to practice that
and offer that to someone whomay need that this season?
I love that.
I love that thought.
I'm just sitting with that andholding it.
(16:20):
I don't think I've ever carriedhope for someone Like.
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I was particularly aware of the fact that I, in my
expression or what I'veexperienced, hope is the thing
that lights, the spark.
It is like the little lightthat shows us how to get to the
greater light.
And so what I recognized was myfriend was in a very fragile
(16:50):
space.
To be somewhere without anyhope feels like you're.
You know that's an open doortoward depression or toward
further trauma or for further,you know, a deepening of a grief
or of a lament.
And so, because I was aware thatI was the person holding the
(17:10):
hope, it made me moreintentional with the connection
with that person.
You know I didn't expect thatperson to reach out and call and
or make forward motion that Irecognized I was holding the
hope.
Sometimes hope motivates us andif that person had lacked
(17:31):
motivation toward, you know,progress or toward things that
are ahead, I recognized that itwas going to be through
relationship and it really meantto me very much.
I've done this many times withmy small children where if they
have need of something, I'veheld whatever they felt like
they needed or they wanted todiscard, but I've held it in my
hand and then I just stayedclose to them and I think that
(17:53):
connection and closeness is theway that we can hold someone's
hope that especially in ourworld and how we experience
community.
Community is not justgeographically set to one small
space anymore, you know.
We can be in community withpeople who are very different
from us, but also in variedplaces than us.
(18:15):
And so, recognizing howimportant that connection is and
making ways to stay close tosomeone intentionally, and
eventually, she said, because wetalked about it, she said I
don't think you held my hope.
She said I think your hoperubbed off on me, and so,
whether it was her hope thatI've held for her, or whether I
(18:37):
had enough hope to share thatthat kind of connection can
inspire, I guess I believe thateveryone has a hope, because I
believe that the Spirit lives inus and the Spirit is hopeful,
but sometimes we don't see.
And sometimes things haven'tbeen unveiled yet or unwrapped
(19:00):
yet, or there is such a painthat we can't see past that pain
.
But I am of the belief thatevery person has a hope, because
the light of Christ that's inall of us.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I'm thinking about something that you know in
my own experience, where it wasdark or there were moments in
my history that I didn't think Iwould ever pass through it.
And I've often held this titlefor a book and I've shared it
(19:34):
with a few people not manypeople, but this title of the
Three Times that God Disappeared, the three times that God
disappeared.
And in holding that over theyears, those three particular
markers in my life, one of thecommon threads that I've noticed
is that trust was broken.
(19:55):
That trust caused me to ormistrust.
A lack of trust caused me to ormistrust.
A lack of trust made the hopemeter fall and decline, and I
wonder if you have anyexperience with that.
Can we hope without trust?
(20:21):
Can we hope without love?
Can we hope without faith?
Can we hope without faith?
Can we hope without peace?
Are these Advent themes thatwe're getting ready to
experience all interchangeableand interconnected in a way that
brings us into the light, outof the dark place, into a place
of hope, peace, faith and love?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
It's a powerful question that you ask, and I
certainly wouldn't considermyself an expert in hope, but I
would tell you that I have atleast an advanced degree in
holding onto hope.
I feel like I have a lot ofgrit when it comes to holding on
to hope, and I think that hopeis different than luck or
(21:11):
different than I think you usedthe words earlier a blind hope.
I think it's essential to knowwhere my hope is like when you
have a grappling hook, if youknow where that hook is in or
the strength of the rock that itis connected to.
I feel for myself, I don'talways have hope that people
(21:33):
will change.
I have experience that saysthat they don't.
But my hope is not necessarilyin that people will change, but
my hope is in the fact that loveis eternal and that God one day
will right every wrong and thatone day all the things that
have harmed will be healed, andone day.
(21:54):
And so my hope is notnecessarily in a particular time
, but in the eternal and in theeternal one, and not in the
sweet by and by particular time,but in the eternal and in the
eternal one and not in the sweetby and by.
But what that does for my soulto be able to say my hope is in
God, my hope is in love, my hopeis in the power of spirit, who
creates from the chaos, andsometimes, when I see chaos,
(22:18):
even naming it as look at thisbeautiful place for the spirit
to work, look what we havecreated in our world, and then
the mantra of come, holy Spirit,come.
And what does that mean for theHoly Spirit to come?
Not that I get out of the way,but if I'm inviting the Spirit
that I'm inviting, use my hands,use my words, use my life, use
(22:38):
my imagination to bring thekingdom that we're asking for,
the kingdom of God that is sofull of love and goodness and
the prayer that we've beenpraying, as it is in heaven, may
it be on earth.
I want to see that and I believein the hope that is the promise
to come.
It's yeah for me.
(23:00):
What do I have my hope in?
I am disappointed when I put myhope in someone to keep their
word.
Yeah, that has disappointed me.
But when my hope is in theeternal and again, not in the
afterlife the eternal that ispresent, the spirit that is
present.
When my hope is in the spiritwho breathes life into dead
(23:20):
things, who wakens the seeds andbrings the springtime, who
tells the leaves to drop and totake a rest, you know, my hope
is that resurrection spirit isin the spirit of the divine, who
calls us all into oneness andwholeness.
That's a beautiful thought.
We want to pause and take amoment and let you know how glad
(23:43):
we are that you've joined us.
If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a
friend, and if you found theconversation intriguing and want
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expansionistheologycom.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's interesting that you bring Spirit into this
conversation, not that she's notalways present with us, but
that was one of the transitionsfor me when I felt hope slipping
away.
There was a particular verse inFirst Testament, in the Psalms,
(24:23):
I think, around 25 somewhere, Ican't remember, but it's close
to 25.
I can't remember, but it'sclose to 25.
That I put my trust, it says,in God, and I changed it to
spirit.
I put my trust in you, spirit,I put my trust in my soul is
(24:58):
entrusted to spirit and I'mtrusting you, spirit, with my
life.
It's a bad version of the text,but my point is I had to change
hope.
I couldn't, in my particularcase, keep walking the same
(25:19):
faith path, even until Iconnected somehow differently
with the light that you'redescribing Like.
I needed to have a differentexperience and I needed to find
a way.
I believed that God existed, Ibelieved that spirit existed,
that Jesus was at the center ofmy faith, but the hope of what
(25:48):
even Advent is about, of whateven Advent is about, this
coming of light, of this newbirth, of this freshness, seemed
so far away like I couldn'teven touch it, I couldn't even
imagine, and so I just want toencourage people today that
(26:11):
might be listening to this isit's a real thing not to have
hope.
You know, it is a very realthing not to have it, and I was
reading something the other dayI don't know if I have the
(26:38):
author's name Bruce Fellersuggests that we undergo
meaningful transitions onceevery 12 to 18 months, and this
spoke in a way to me that saysI'm either going into transition
, I'm either in the middle of atransition or I'm coming out of
one.
Right, that's a lot of changein our lives.
(26:58):
If we think about every 12 to18 months, there's some kind of
transition for us, and so, as Ihold hope today, I'm thinking of
it in similar ways that I'mentering Advent.
I'm entering this season, thisfirst theme of Advent called
(27:26):
hope, and I feel like I'm at thebeginning of something that I
haven't yet experienced.
It hasn't been birthed in meyet.
It's coming right, but you andI have been through many Advents
.
Yes, year after year after year, or season after season, or
time after time, advent meaningthis Christmas season.
And yet here we are, inexpectation, in this excitement
(27:55):
of waiting.
So is patience a part of hope?
Do I need to wait?
Do I need to linger.
Do I need to hover?
Do I need to be still?
Do I need to hover?
Do I need to be still Like as Ienter this place of light and
renewal?
If I'm seeking hope, what am Idoing in this waiting period, in
(28:20):
the now and the not yet?
What's happening I had for youtoday is what does centering
your hope on love for God orothers mean to you?
Like when you center your hopeof love towards God or towards
(28:43):
other people, what does thatmean in your life?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Well, personally, it means I love Advent because it's
an invitation to slow, and it'san invitation to claim the
sacredness and practicesacredness in every season of
our life, not just in thesunshine, not just in where we
are experiencing growth, butwhere we are experiencing what
may to some people, and even toourselves, if we're looking,
(29:09):
feel like nothing is happening,nothing is changing.
Well, this might be a winterseason where we accept the
slowing that creation offers us,the invitation to rest in the
fact that god has put beautifulthings there.
But darkness, um, doessomething powerful to our sights
(29:30):
it, it widens our eyes.
We begin to see glimmers ofthings when we turn all the
lights off, or when light is.
There are the lights that wecan't see during the day, but at
nighttime we're able to seetheir little glimmer or shimmer,
and sometimes those are thevery stars that lead us to a
better place, to a newexperience.
And so sometimes the dark isabsolutely necessary to increase
(29:54):
our vision.
And, in fact, my children lovepirates, and so they remind me
all the time that there's aparticular pirate who is known
to always have worn an eye patch, and that way, when he was
fighting someone and it got dark, he could just switch, because
I was always used to being inthe dark and he saw out of both
(30:15):
eyes, but he kept one indarkness, so that he would
always have the advantage.
And I was thinking about theidea of what would that look
like for us to have the abilityto recognize sacred in the
bright, sunny places, but alsorecognize sacred in the damp and
in the dark and in the placesthat feel like the earth Like.
Maybe it feels like a grave,maybe it feels like the seed
(30:38):
that is buried, but there's holyin the hope of all of that.
And you asked me where I beginwith that.
To me it begins with myunderstanding that I agree with
you and agree with the psalmistwho said my hope is in the Lord,
my hope is in God and in yourrendition, my hope is in spirit,
god being spirit.
(30:58):
But sometimes it is just asmuch as saying maybe my view of
God needs to be changed.
Maybe I need a different ideaof who God is.
Maybe I have an image of Godthat does not line up with the
loving, beautiful, expansivespirit that God actually is.
Maybe my perception needs to beexpanded, and I am excited
(31:23):
about the fact that Adventoffers that to us, in fact,
anytime that our eyes needcorrection, when you go to the
eye doctor and they dilate youreyes, they widen that pupil, but
they're like you're going to besensitive to bright lights.
You know, wear these darkglasses for a while until the
healing begins.
And so I think sometimes thatthere is healing that actually
(31:45):
begins in the dark, that thereis goodness and wholeness that
begins in the slowing.
It begins in waiting for thelight, and you mentioned Advent
just now, at the beginning ofthis particular topic.
And I just go back to my holyimagination with Mary.
There's no way she could haveimagined Jesus and his impact in
(32:05):
the world, but she had avisitation, she had an
experience, and in herunderstanding she was asked to
co-create.
The Spirit said are you up tothis?
We have a plan.
And her response was let it be.
I mean, she couldn't have hadthe whole thing figured out and
(32:27):
we are not given the same thing.
But I think that the invitationis that the Christ is going to
be birthed in all of us, that wewould also respond to any
prompting of the Spirit withokay, let it be, be it unto me,
according to your word, becauseI can trust and I have hope that
what you're creating now andwhat you're inviting me into is
(32:50):
good.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yes, that what you're creating now and what you're
inviting me into is good, mm-hmm, yes, yes, there's something
that I'm trying to pull up inthe back of my mind that I read
a couple of days ago.
Someone else's words pull up inin the back of my mind that I
(33:13):
read a couple of days ago,someone else's words um, when
we're talking about this seasonof, how does hope change us in
these transitions of life, ortransitions of time and space,
how does hope change us?
Because that's really whatwe're talking about is we're
(33:40):
hoping that there's change.
We're hoping that there's morelove for people to be healed.
We're hoping that war ends.
(34:05):
We're hoping that globalwarming that seems to be melting
Every part of our world andearth is somehow turned off.
(34:26):
We're hoping that ourneighbor's son or daughter comes
home from war.
We're hoping.
We're hoping for some kind ofchange, some visible, tangible
way to see light and lovebreaking into the world.
And so we keep hoping, andsometimes we have to carry that
hope as you just described to us.
We have to carry it for someone.
(34:49):
But one of the things I heardthe other day was this and you
use the word co-create with thedivine, like that's how hope
(35:21):
breaks in, and that's how Jesusbreaks in to this season.
Right, because Mary had hopedthat this angel was telling her
the truth.
She trusted this voice thatmaybe she didn't know or didn't
understand or never had seen orheard, but there was something
(35:45):
that she held to as shetransitioned through that dark
place where she knew there wasgoing to be rumors and gnashing
of teeth against her for allsorts of reasons, but she
remained faithful to the divinepartnership that she was being
called to.
And it sounds like this divinepartnership, divine human
(36:08):
partnership that you spoke of,where you carried hope for
someone that could not carry itfor themselves.
That's the light of advent,that's the, that's the light of
hope.
That that I see, that I canactually physically do in a
season and in a world wherepeople are struggling to find it
(36:30):
.
It's not that it doesn't exist.
Hope is here.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And I think that hope is cultivated through
conversations, hope iscultivated through actions, hope
is cultivated when wepractically love our neighbors
and we love ourselves and welove the people around us.
And we cultivate hope through,I think, a life of repentance.
(36:55):
And in this repentance thatJesus offered us, it was a life
of changing the way that youthink and this idea that hope
stands in the face of fear, hopestands in the face of betrayal,
in the face of depression, inthe place of all of these things
(37:16):
, and says there is another way,there's a better way, there is
a brighter light, there is ahealing that is offered for all
brokenness.
And we just recently had thisconversation because I was
describing something that was byone of the prophets in the
First Testament, where it saidthat one day you will no longer
train your sons for war and youwill no longer use swords
(37:41):
against each other, but you'llbeat them into plowshares.
And I was sitting across thetable from a woman who said I
cannot imagine a world withoutwar.
And so I paused and I said well, well, I can let me tell you
what it would be like.
And I said I'd be interested inyour input.
And we actually paused and wesaid what would it be like for
people not to resort to violencewhen they are angry?
What would it be like when ouranger is so sacred and so
(38:06):
righteous that it only propelsus to do good and not harm?
What is it going to be like?
And so, taking a moment toactually allow our imagination
to be filled with the Spirit,what would it look like for a
world with no war?
Shelley, that's possible, yeah,but we have to imagine it first
.
We have to give ourselvespermission to say what would it
(38:29):
look like for us to haveconversations when we had
disagreements, and notimmediately cut people out or,
because we disagree with them,not hear them, or, because we
disagree with them, defame them,but to be able to say if I
believe that there is apotential for a world without
war, then what am I doing to bea peacemaker?
(38:51):
What am I doing to change theway that people's thoughts are?
And I don't again.
It can be as simple as aconversation.
It can be us expressing ourintention through a podcast.
It can be reading poetry thatexpands us.
It can be baking for a neighboror sitting with someone who
doesn't have hope and holdinghope for them, but it also to me
(39:15):
, hope is connected very deeplyto relationship.
It's connected very deeply toconnection, to what does it look
like to recognize that the bodyof Christ that is here on the
earth today, that we are all sogenuinely connected to each
other and that we recognize ourconnectionness to the whole, to
(39:40):
what love is intending to dohere, how the kingdom wants to
break through, and Jesus's wordsto us were that it's so close,
it's even in your mouth.
I want the kingdom that is inthe atmosphere around us to be
ones of love, and so I havegreat imagination for how hope
propels us into loving action.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
You have a hopeful imagination.
That's what you have hopeful,and I have hopeful thoughts and
I have well as you're as you're,as you're saying these things,
there, there's so many littleplaces that I want to jump with
you and I know we don't havetime for that today.
People that you know, people offaith, and people that are not
(40:53):
even part of churches are, youknow, just seeing, for example,
faith practices that go againsteven a hopeful imagination that
you just described.
And so when you say that, I'mlike I can see a world, I can
imagine a world where love isthis expansive blanket that
covers us all, and then I canimagine somebody on the other
(41:14):
side of that blanket saying youknow, you're taking up too much
of this blanket right now andhave many reasons why they don't
want to share the blanket.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
But, shelley, do we really have to share the blanket
?
We'll just get two.
We believe in a God who is morethan enough.
Yes, yes, we can imagineanother way of doing it.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
There is this kinship that we long for right.
I do believe that there is this.
You say kingdom, I say kingdomor queendom, even, you know,
even bring the queens and thekings into this space, where
hope is the breath of life.
Yeah, hope is the breath oflife.
(41:58):
I would love to be part of thatworld.
Let's make it.
Yes, let's do.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I want to read a prayer as I enter the dark, by
Patti Joy Posen.
I am humbled.
An invitation to welcomedarkness knocks at my door.
Divine Mother, be with me as Igreet the darkness.
May the cloak of peace and hopewrap around me.
May I listen to the voices, seethe beauty in knowing, hear
(42:33):
with an open heart, feel thecaress of darkness, touch and
not be afraid, and emerge abovethe murky waters and bloom with
the beauty of a lotus.
And as the rhythm of joy movesthrough my body.
May I, as a butterfly, knowlightness of being and be
(42:55):
renewed.
Amen, amen.
It was our joy to have youlisten to our conversation today
.
If you would like furtherinformation or for more content,
visit us atexpansionisttheologycom.
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