"There is always hope"

A good friend of mine with a different sort of MND lives in the village of Longhope in Gloucestershire. I must say, although I've never been there, it looks an idyllic place. There are lots of hill walks in around the village, which now of course my friend isn't able to enjoy. What I particularly like about the village is its name. Apparently it means "long enclosed valley" - which in a way is apt as that's what chronic illness can feel like, but I prefer to think of it as "long-held hope" (expectation). Whether that's the hope of a cure being discovered by some God-inspired researchers or of green pastures where one day we'll dwell in his presence for ever, holding on to hope is a blessing worth having.

It's not the only thing that keeps us going. Another is receiving the gift of a new day every day. Our garden's not spectacular by any means, but I still gaze out of the window each breakfast time and admire the vitality and variety of creation. When it's raining the earth is dark and grateful; when it's stopped raindrops catch the light in unlooked for places; when the sun comes out, the hazel leaves take on a fresh lime-green vibrancy. And of course the greatest blessing is being loved.

I gather, from yesterday's Independent, that "Banksy's image of kissing policemen, originally daubed on a Brighton pub wall, has been surprisingly named the single work of art that best expresses British identity in a poll of 1,000 artists." I'm not sure what that says about contemporary British artists! It so happens we were talking with Pete and Jane a week ago, not about that graffito, but about "There is always hope", which I think first appeared on the South Bank. We were provoked by the question I'd read asking how we would relate it to the Christian good news (the writer saw the escaped balloon as symbolising forlorn hope and related it to the "better hope" that we have in Jesus). I myself imagined Jesus leaning down over the parapet and catching the balloon and giving it back to the girl, as many times as she let go of it, for, as the hymn puts it, "the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind". I think that's what the Incarnation (Jesus' birth) and the Atonement (his death) are about, his coming down with forgiveness and love for all and always.