Hope Sermon, Part 2

The first image that came to my mind when I read those words, “a living hope,” was of one of my favorite places on the earth. If I take you to our cabin in central Iowa, you will see life all around. Birds, deer, gorgeous trees, deep green grasses, tall, yellow-green field grasses, bugs flying everywhere, a river flowing and teeming with fish. The wildlife on that property is too numerous to count. We’ve seen raccoons and even wildcats. Wild turkey roams the area. The land is alive! Creation continues to explode there. We’ve tamed a small portion of the land so that we can have a living space, but the rest is wildly alive!

I want to read you a poem that my mother wrote in 1969 about this land. We purchased those 17 acres in 1964 and called it Bell’s Dell after the family that settled that area and whose name is the original name on the deed to the land. Right across the road is Bell’s Mill Park where there used to be a mill on the river. This is called “Benediction.”

Long years I thought of it and now
I have bought my garden;
I saw it, desired it, asked for it,
And gave the man some money for it.
It is my garden now, isn't it?

My mind answers yes, my soul, no!
I cannot own what is universal;
I cannot lay claim to ageless change;
I cannot buy the memories of other footsteps
Treading the same winding paths.

My garden is a meadow, a hill,
A river, trees, gooseberries, thistles,
The spring-popped morel, the dainty columbine,
The delicate warm breeze of summer
Laughing gently at my folly.

It is bugs, myriad swarms of clinging,
Flying, buzzing insects, sticking to my
Sweaty skin as I labor to trim,
Control, govern the lush new growth
Of a wanton spring.

But I cannot own these things.
Does one entrap the wind, command
It to gently soothe a hot, dusty face?
Does one really own free-flying birds
And deer who call my garden home?

I may live here, too, at peace with
The wild things whose roots stretch far
Deeper into this black dirt than mine. I am
Merely a guest, content to
Borrow the beauty of my garden.

The trees will grow here long after
I die. They will watch others till
My garden. The over-arching boughs of
The leaning walnut on the hillside gives
Its benediction to my garden.

Bell’s Dell is alive. Everything about it is alive. When I think of a ‘living hope,’ these are the images that flood my mind.