Hope (in general)

This post isn't about our daughter even though she has that meaningful word for a name. She's got her own little, good thing going on today; her daddy brought home the long-awaited, library-copy DVD for Snow White. We were on the waiting list forEVER and so when he brought it home we popped it in and it was all scratchy. I buffed it up and she got to watch it this morning. Since the moment the movie ended she has been fluttering about, quite obviously acting out every scene from the movie. Peggy is lucky (?) enough to play all the supporting roles. I think she's serving as a stand-in for almost every dwarf, the witch, and Prince Charming. Hope is dancing all over the house.

Setting her Disney-induced happiness to the side for just a sec...

There has been a lot of major and minor sadness and worry in the lives of several of my friends and relatives recently. As I was searching for music online this afternoon, I came across a song cycle by Jocelyn Hagen. I was lucky to be singing with our church choir when the choir performed one of Jocelyn's choral compositions. Anyway, this song cycle is set to poems by Emily Dickenson. The series of songs is called, Hope, so it jumped out at me. The third song in the set has these words:

I shall know why
when time is over
and I refuse to wonder why
Christ shall explain each separate anguish
in that fair schoolroom of the sky.

You can go to her publishing site and listen to samples and read the other texts.