Presencing hope

“The surgeon had only bad news for the large group of friends who were keeping vigil at the hospital (the surgery took 3 or 4 hours). He said these tumors don’t respond to treatment. It sounds hopeless….”

Arriving yesterday morning, the above email concerning a friend’s brain tumor was not encouraging. Later, on my way over to the Peace Fire to offer prayers, I passed a glance at the emerging spiral from the Womb of the Earth. Supposedly symbolising hope, it didn’t seem any too hopeful.

A damp, light mist hung in the air and even though the frogs croaked noisily in appreciation of the wet, the thought of a good person dying young coloured me grey. Looking at the seemingly “distant” spiral across the ashen waters of the pond, I wasn’t able to draw any comfort with prayers of: “may Paula’s tumors dissolve into nothingness” or “may Paula have many more years of happiness”.

Notwithstanding my belief in the healing power of thought, these prayers seemed inadequate and hollow, somehow pushing falsely against the reality I see swarming around me daily at Windgrove: the cycles of of birth, life, death, birth, life, death.

It seemed more appropriate to pray that Paula, while she lay recovering in the hospital, be fully present with each passing breath and that she cherish each second of her earthly consciousness and was not consumed with what tomorrow might bring or not bring.

It also seemed more kindly that her friends not pray so much for her future, but that they just love her fully in the moment.

Later in the day while talking with a friend Elizabeth about “hope”, she presented me with her concept of “presencing hope”; about how, when her daughter was born with a supposedly terminal condition, she learned to live each minute second by second. Here, she held her daughter in the love of that particular moment and did not allow the future, whatever it might be, to push into the day with its distant hopes or fears.

Out of this simple, yet difficult task of just “being present” an envelope of hope did emerge to surround each moment. Out of this focused presence came a hopeful halo that hung delicately in the air with just enough glow to allow those in the darkened room to see the smiling, cheerful face of the baby who shouldn’t have been alive.

A smile so precious that its presence was enough to distil any sense of hopelessness for the future into a tiny ballooning “presence of hope” that floated ever so tenderly out into the world beyond.

By staying present with the goodness of each moment, hope was born within Elizabeth. Although fragile as a spider’s web, this presencing hope would continually whisper that at the end of that minute or that hour or that day Hannah would still be with them. And, seven years later, she is.

Smile, smile dear Paula. We’re with you.