I have become one of those people who has a chair.
It is my thinking spot.
My pondering perch.
My favorite place to write and mull and stare off into space.
In the picture above, you can see the spot just beyond the books, fuzzy and out of focus in the background.
When I sit here on sunny mornings, the light comes through the window behind me and cast the most lovely rays on the threadbare quilt that is splayed over the back of the sofa across the room.
Sometimes I get lost in those beams of light, in the folds of the quilt.
The pattern of the quilt is called “bow tie” but really what they look like to me is arrows.
Arrows pointing both ways. East and West. North and South. Side to side.
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I have a necklace that I bought at a craft market last fall.
The pendant is an old soup spoon that has been flattened and stamped into.
In the middle of the spoon are crisscross arrows, and then, in the four open spaces around the arrows
(what is essentially East and West, North and South,)
are the letters
H
O
P
E
When people, children in particular, look at the pendant, which they do often, because, hello, it is a spoon hanging from my neck, I always feel compelled to say
You see, it spells Hope. Because hope comes from all directions.
I say it for them. I say it for myself.
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The arrows on the quilt point both ways.
The sun beams move unto the floor leaving the sofa in the shadows, traveling as they do through their daily sequence of visitations.
Tomorrow the sun will peak in again, and cast its loving warmth over the quilt once more.
Soon I will use up all my thinking time and I will join the sun, traveling through my daily sequence as well.
I will step out of my quiet and comfort, in the wilderness of Lent.
Into the noise and the heartache and confusion.
Into the tidal wave that is living life with a heart exposed;
Wearing red shoes, and looking for H O P E in all directions.
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