Smile?

Smile & You’ll See Hope
11 December 2006 – The pastoral text of Fr Reuter is this: If you are living in hardship, smile! It is God’s way of preparing you for the joyous days of Christmas. Apt image by Psycosm who captions it ‘Destitute’ (flickr.com/). Why apt? Because it shows someone deprived of even the treasure of a smile. I know it is difficult to smile, even when you are not living in hardship. That’s when you have not learned to give thanks for what you are, what you have. If you are truly destitute, so much so that the food to eat for the next meal is a problem, what can you be thankful for? That’s a difficult question. But if I were the one, I would be thankful that I’m alive, that I have hope for the next meal, that I have hope, period. Of course that’s easier said than done. I know. I have suffered many hardships, and I didn’t have that kind of optimism before. I didn’t know I had to smile first before I would have hope. I was only waiting for hope to come to me. That’s like wishing the mountain to come to Mohammed. It’s not easy to cultivate hope amidst circumstances that cry for despair. That’s precisely the point – you must have hope when everything seems all wrong. You owe it to yourself, and your loved ones. And if you can do that, why, I assure you, everyday is just like Christmas.