Cactus Juice

On Top of the Swing-set

I was talking to a friend in her backyard, while her advanced toddler played on his new swing-set / battleship / fort / in all ways multifunctional backyard object.  He had climbed on top of the crossbar of the swing-set.  "Mom."  "I see you baby."  "Mom!."  More demanding.  "Yes, baby?  "Mom," he declared seriously, "this is not safe."

Over my visit, I watched this child continue to press the boundaries of his physical safety.  His parents would intervene, often saying, "Baby, that is not safe."  He continued to gleeful report what was not safe, now that he was learning which was which.  But to him, what was not safe was mere information, as if you were telling him, "That is an activity we do on Wednesdays, and today is Friday so instead I want you to do something else."  There was no particular moral component to safe or not safe; safety was just a whim of his parents.

Of course, because he has good parents, he is not completely safe.  He has a swing-set that he can climb on top of while his mother is watching.  He tries new things.  He is too young for courage, because he does not have properly understood fear.  He just has some information, "This is not safe."

I've been trying some new things lately, things that I hope I won't regret bringing into my life.  I found myself thinking, "Hope is not safe," and I remembered the boy sitting on top of his swing-set declaring, "This is not safe."  Life is not safe, but that is just information, not a reason to stay out of the backyard.

He Gave Up America for Hope, on Thanksgiving Day

On Thanksgiving Day, a recent widow crashed her car in the remote Arizona desert.  She died shortly thereafter leaving a 9-year-old son, now an orphan.  The boy would have been alone, defenseless, lost in more ways than is imaginable, were it not for a passing illegal immigrant walking in from Mexico.  Imagine the moment of that decision, safely across the border, safely anonymous in the desert, no one to see or to judge.  Indeed, the man had nothing in particular to offer- the widow was still alive when he arrived, he could not save her.  The son was alone in the desert, he could not call for help.  The son was surely devastated and perhaps he could not even offer words of comfort, unable to speak the same language.  Someone else would have come along, indeed, the next morning someone did.

But this man, Jesus Manuel Cordova, stayed with the boy.  Eventual border control responded, rescuing the American boy and arresting the Mexican man.  Surely first this is a heroic of a charitable heart, of love.  But it is love informed by hope- that taking action matters, that the sacrifice is worth something.

Coming soon, a post about the failures of love without hope.

Hope: A Place to Start

Perhaps every addict starts from a failure of hope.  Rather than take on the world with integrity and courage, we retreat to our anesthetizing substitute.  What the world gives us may or may not be any good, and while what we pull from our substance (in my case, food) definitely won't be good, it is at least known.  The text for introducing hope as an ideal is 1 Corinthians 13.  Even hope, the miracle of faith, is only a support for greater virtues that one does not yet dare to dream.  Hope is not the ultimate ideal of Christianity, but the final verses give the hope for hope.

Here the King James Version, but recall that other versions commonly translate the virtue "charity" as "love":

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and I have not Charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greastest of these is charity.