Joan Schramm, St. Joseph
Hope. If you’re fortunate you feel it often and deeply in your lifetime. It’s much more rare to “see” hope, but when you do it’s a precious gift. One day, when I was watching the evening news, I received that gift. A train, carrying Syrian refugees, pulled into a station in Germany and when they debarked they were greeted by a huge crowd of German citizens clapping, cheering and waving welcome flags. As I looked at the faces of those refugees I then understood what a tough substance hope is. It takes real courage to believe there’s a way out. Then the camera focused on a German woman handing a Syrian child a cookie. Now that small hand was quite dirty and the cookie wasn’t very big, but neither seemed to notice. My gift was to see the hopeful smiles that slowly spread across both their faces. My prayer for this world is that every child be given a cookie – a cookie of hope.