Where Love Meets Hope

Yesterday was the London Marathon. We saw the huge spectacle of over 50,000 people running through London… we saw fridge-bearing runner Daniel Fairbrother proposing to his girlfriend Hayley; he’d kept an engagement ring wrapped in toilet roll;

Daniel’s strength– running 26 miles carrying a 26kg fridge called Tallulah to raise £10,000 for Diabetes UK… met his vulnerability – proposing very publicly; their love for each other met their hopes for the future.

Hayley said yes; the crowd cheered; Daniel finished the race.

Yesterday we opened a bottle of 19 Crimes Australian wine…

In the Industrial Revolution criminals were banished to Australia because prisons were overcrowded. 19 crimes could lead to ‘Punishment by Transportation’…

On the cork from each bottle is written one of these crimes. Yesterday’s was ‘Clandestine Marriage’. Clandestine marriage was legally binding because it was conducted by a clergyman; if it was done in secret it broke the law…

I wonder where Love and Hope met in clandestine marriages that led to transportation…

On Saturday’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Sydnie Christmas sung ‘Tomorrow’… usually sung by a precocious child in a sickly manner to get an ‘Ahhhh’ from the audience.

Sydnie made me see ‘Tomorrow’ in a new light: ‘The sun will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun…’There was sincerity. She knew what it was to be ‘stuck in a day that’s grey and lonely’; I saw her determination to ‘stick out my chin, and grin’ – despite everything.

Sydnie’s ‘Tomorrow’ is the place where Love meets Hope.

Yesterday in church we read about Jesus’ resurrection appearances to fearful disciples.

Lou talked about scars. The scars that Jesus showed his disciples, reminding them of his death and crucifixion… the scars that the disciples were carrying through their experiences of that Easter weekend… the scars that we all carry – physical, mental, emotional that tell something of our personal stories.

Perhaps Jesus’ scars, the disciples’ scars, and our scars, are a reminder of that place where Love meets Hope…