"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
This past Thursday, while at our meal service, we said goodbye to two fairly regular homeless individuals. One is headed for New York, the other for California. For the first time in a long time, there seemed to be a little sparkle of hope in their eyes...they seemed a little less deadened to reality.
In the end, hope isn't the same as knowing that something will turn out well...but it's a chance they have to take. I always get a little sad when our homeless clients move on -- after all, they've become a part of our lives and we genuinely worry about what will happen to them. Personally, seeing them every week reiterates that they are "still okay," or perhaps "still alive, struggling, and surviving," could be a better way to describe it. When they stop surfacing, I worry that something bad has happened...occasionally I have been proven wrong, but more often then not my fears are probably valid.
Here is to wishing our two homeless friends well...I sincerely hope that they find a better life out there, and I hope that they will go on to experience all that this life has to offer them.
