From Dirges to Anthems – Out of Despair; Hope

Greetings Dear Reader,

Scarecrow's dreams like frozen streams

Thirst for the thaw but they're running still

And if you ever hear them calling out

And if you've been by paupers crowned

Between the worlds of men and make-believe I can be found

 – Dan Fogelberg

In one of my favorite movies, The Magnificent Seven, Vin utters the words “We deal in lead.”  I have said before, and will often say again that what Christ followers deal in is hope.  I am in the business of hope.  After taking time to carefully think through something I pinned to my heart as a dirge of self-pity, I realize it is an anthem of hope.  Even if all the preceding lines are true it does not matter.  At the end of it all is a statement of hope.

My “scarecrow’s dreams” may at times feel frozen and under the surface of deep winter.  The earth may seem hard as iron and water like stone.  It may be that I feel on some days that my writing will never become what sustains me.  None of that matters.  The stream is still flowing.  Even when I cannot see it there is movement.

I will end this bit of the journey where I began.  I miss Dan Fogelberg.  His music always has something to say to me.  Some of it helps me see Christ more clearly.  Some of it reminds me of the dangers of being a fallen man.  Most of it has an element of hope.  So I write on.  I live within the promise of my gifts and the hope that the tales I weave will become what they are meant to become.

For now the feelings are the same.  I feel frozen and alone.  I still love and miss Avalon and hunger for real time to pursue who I really am.  For now the streams are frozen.  If, however, you listen you can hear it.  Beneath the stony water there is that same laughter of the flow that one can hear in springtime.  It is fainter, softer, and gentler.  Perhaps it is sleeping.  Between the worlds of men and make-believe is the slice of life that is real.  It is the place where Christ leads gently onward.  It is where he and I deal in hope.

A friend of mine I have never met said it so clearly.  He lost most of his family.  He went bankrupt.  He became very ill.  His friends assailed him with false accusations. He sat in the ashes of his life and said this of God, “Though he slay me, yet will I serve him.”  As we turn the corner to autumn and I feel the descending winter of my dreams, I know that this is true: Even when there seems to be more darkness and despair than I can carry, there is hope.  We deal in hope. 

Even scarecrows after all have a purpose.  They are unusable hay and old clothes.  They are relegated to the corn field and left out in the weather.  They are still of use.  Consider Frank Baum’s scarecrow.  Stuffing and old clothes that became king of OZ.    One must after all be something and if it serves the greater journey that for a bit I am just a scarecrow that is all right.  It will not always be thus.  This scarecrow has his dreams and they are filled with hope because of Christ’s love and the gift of faith.  Dear friend walk with me a bit.  I may lose some straw along the way but that must makes the burden lighter.  We deal in hope and we have someplace to go.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn                              

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."