A Far Bigger Picture

Here’s a special note from our Community Listener Grace from Pasadena, California who attended Big Sunday’s Spooky Saturday event. You can find more stories from Spooky Saturday and Big Sunday here.

For a long time now, I’ve had a complicated relationship with hope. I think if most of us are honest, we will admit that we have days — sometimes weeks, months, even years — when hope seems to be nothing more than a Pollyanna stand-in for self-delusion. As we get older, we watch as the dreams we were taught to believe in turn to dust, leaving nothing behind but a shadow that chills us to the core. Stuff happens to us that wasn’t in the original plan; in spite of our best efforts, life refuses to follow our carefully crafted scripts.

The world is full of broken hearts. What’s the point of hope?

I’m not sure I have an answer. But I have a story.

Just a few weeks ago, on October 30, a group of over 100 adults and children came together to throw a Halloween party for disabled and disadvantaged kids in Los Angeles. This was Big Sunday’s Spooky Saturday event, held at the Big Sunday headquarters on Melrose. I was there, and saw firsthand the enthusiastic efforts that went into creating a truly memorable occasion.

The attention to detail in the decor was astounding. Ghosts (inflated balloons with sheets thrown over them) hung from ceiling fans. Fake cobwebs stretched across windows. Someone had even gone to the trouble of cutting a lot of mouse-shaped silhouettes out of black construction paper and then taping them to steps on a staircase.

Over 200 costumes had been donated and were made available to kids for free. Stations were set up throughout the building and outside for face painting, “tattoos”, trick-or-treat bag decorating, picture taking. One woman had gotten up at 8:30 that morning to prepare enough lunch to feed all the volunteers. A neighboring company had offered its parking lot for the afternoon for a “Trunk or Treat” area where 20 cars were parked and decorated, trunks filled with candy for the kids. And a group of Girl Scouts and friends constructed an elaborate Haunted House complete with all the requisite gory details, such as a Witch’s Kitchen and a Mad Scientist dissecting table (trust me, you don’t want to know).

The whole event was an incredible labor of love, topped off with lots of joy and laughter. Is it possible to have love without hope?

I once read a novel in which a main character defends his activist approach to life by saying, “I see what is there. I see what is not there, too, and wish for what is missing to arrive.” I believe hope is what spurs us to bridge that gap between the seen and the unseen; between what is and what ought to be. It’s an answer to that part of the Lord’s prayer that cries out, “Thy kingdom come.”

Look around the world and you’ll see pain. You’ll see suffering. You’ll see injustice. Bad news is easy to spot. After all, it gets the most press. But hope, if we let it, gives us a different kind of vision, one that encompasses a far bigger picture.

Maybe that’s the point.

So I’m thankful that I had the chance to go to Spooky Saturday. I’m thankful because I saw hope at work on behalf of children that many might be tempted to write off as hopeless. I’m thankful that there are people like the staff and volunteers I met, whose hope leads them to make a difference in an indifferent world. I’m thankful for the volunteer parents who encouraged their own children to get involved in serving others as well.

And I’m thankful for The Hope Chronicles, which is helping to bring the bigger picture — little by little — into a bit more focus.

Listen and read more stories from Spooky Saturday and Big Saturday here.

---

Tags: big sunday, thankful