Mystical Hope

As I begin to wander through my images of Italy, I see that there are numerous shots like this one, the camera pointing up or down a tiny alley, with something delicious off in the distance. I also noticed that I was not alone in taking these pictures; that there were always other photographers enticed by the same basic shot.

So what is it in these little alleys that is so appealing? Perhaps it is because of a conversation I had with one of the other people on the trip, but I think the allure of these alleys has something to do with hope.

It was one of those serendipitous conversations; we happened to be across from one another at dinner, and I learned that she was a coloratura soprano in the choir of a California church also attended by the woman who house-sat for us while we were in Italy. So the conversation -- unlike most of the other conversations on the trip -- took a bit of a spiritual bent, and she said at one point that she didn't think she could live without hope.

Which made me remember the very first time I heard Cynthia Bourgeault speak: it was an appearance at our local bookstore, to which I had been dragged (mildly against my will) by a dear friend who had lost her son to suicide the previous year. Cynthia was promoting her latest book, Mystical Hope, and one of the members of the audience asked her during the question and answer period what the difference was between Buddhism and Christianity.

Because I have drifted in and out of both these camps with some frequency over the years, I paid particular attention to her answer, so I remember even now, several years later, that she replied at the time that the difference was that Christianity holds out hope.

In the years since then I have occasionally noticed that some Buddhist writers express a distinct skepticism about hope, and see it as a foolish way of avoiding the realities of existence. But, more importantly, I have come to see that, for me, hope is inextricably entangled with my constant underlying awareness of the Divine. It may be childish of me, but there is always, even in my darkest moments, a sense that -- as they sing in Music Man -- "The Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin... and it could be, something special, just for me."

So I look down or up all the tiny little alleys in these beautiful hilltowns of Italy, and rejoice again in the way the darkness around the doorway serves to set off the light and color that calls to me from the distance. And I am thankful, once again, for this curious blessing I have been given; for the constant underlying awareness that somewhere, just around the corner, something special awaits me. I don't think I dwell on that, or get caught up in it; it's more that the anticipation of the future somehow serves as an antidote to worry, so that I can stay more in the moment and thoughts of the future just become like a spice for the present.