Hope floats

Love’s possibilities push us above the surface in innumerable ways

Once upon a time, when Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr., were young and Gena Rowlands was alive, when Claudia and I had been married just two short years, we watched the 1998 film “Hope Floats.” I endured many romantic and romantic-comedy productions over the years as a gift of marital sacrifice, not because of my own particular interest, but because they made Claudia happy.

There is nothing remarkable about the movie itself, but the innovative title helps me reflect on the hope-filled day that brushed my soul yesterday.

It was, as all Easter Sundays for pastors, a very long day, filled with people and fanfare and, best of all, hope. I groaned early yesterday morning as I felt the weight of the day upon me. There would be the 9:30 AM worship service, a gap of a couple hours before my rotation-assigned area nursing home service at 2:00 PM, after which I would travel with Otis and my two area sons the 2-1/2 hours to my extended family’s Easter dinner at 5:00 PM, spend time visiting with my mother, her sisters and cousins and their progeny, then return back home again. I anticipated Otis and I would be finally home sometime before midnight.

It is now Easter Monday, and I am in a renewed mode of hope. Yesterday, as intense as it was, stirred the glowing embers of my soul into flames of possibility, an internal response to Love’s ardent life throb.

Easter morning worship crackled with energy. Chairs in the sanctuary were filled with multi-generational family units (Moms and Dads of adult children, their grown children and grandchildren), singles (myself now included in that number), regular church attenders as well as those who are less regular, but connected in some way to the life of this Christian community. Numbers aren’t everything, but for small congregations a full house makes all of us feel more hopeful. In contrast to my first few Sundays back in the summer, we had more than eighty additional people in worship yesterday.

After some recovery time back home, one of my adult sons, Otis and I set out for the nursing home. There was a time in my life when I would have resented this extra community pastoral function, but yesterday I felt it a privilege to be with the elderly faithful to remind and be reminded that death does not have the final word. As part of my sermon, I shared with them a bit of my personal spiritual journey in the past year, recounting how Love has lifted me in countless ways, mini-resurrections along through a season of grief. I closed by sharing with them the dream with Claudia I had experienced a few hours earlier in the night. They laughed at the right places and nodded knowingly as I shared my own story of grief.

As I visited with individuals after the service, one of the ladies (whom I had not seen before; she must be a new resident) was crying softly. In north-European, Scandinavian ancestry rich locales like this small town nursing home, public tears are unusual.

“You made me cry,” she said. I apologized, but she waved my words away, as she explained that she understood my grief. We exchanged assurances that we would pray for one another in the days to come.

By the time I left the second of my two worship services for the day, I was filled with gratitude for this pastoral life I live, and now live so much more fully having experienced the gravest loss of my life in the past year.

The trip northward was pleasant enough, Otis balancing here and there on my adult son’s lap and shoulders and chest, as for more than two hours he sought a place of contentment. Arriving at my aunt’s house, Otis had the opportunity to meet his first canine peer ever (the interaction was standard Minnesota aloof, a reserved acknowledgment of one another with little interaction). Cousins and their children and grandchildren were boisterously enjoying an Easter meal together, and my sons and I joined in the revelry, sitting at the “adult” table in the room.

In time the younger generations slipped away into the growing darkness of the night, but I stayed longer, visiting with my mother, two aunts, a first cousin once removed and a cousin who has been a source of support in the past year. Otis expressed his clear preference for those he knew best (my son and me), but spent time in the arms and laps of others, to their words of affirmation at his silky hair and capacity to snuggle.

By this time it was after 8:00 PM, and knowing we had another 2-1/2 hour trip before us, we said our goodbyes, exchanged hugs and returned home. We were tired. My son riding with me and I continued a conversation, interspersed with more silence than earlier in the day, Otis napped on my son’s lap and then on his own in the back seat.

By the time I pulled into my driveway sometime after 11:30 PM, I realized it was the longest day I had spent out and about with near continuous activity of one sort or another since Claudia’s death. The shock of loss and the pain of grief over the past year have robbed me of such good, very full days.

Within minutes of walking in the door, Otis and I were ready for bed. I tucked him in his carrier, slid under the sheets of my bed and spent a few minutes in what my contemplative spiritual friends call examen, asking myself where Love had been present in my day, where I had sensed moments of Love’s absence, and thanking God for all the day had done for my inner most being.

As I drifted off to sleep, I smiled to myself.

It is true.

Hope floats.