Indestructable Hope

The parental units and I attended the Canadian University College commencement service despite the crazy weather we’ve been having here in Alberta. Apparently snow this late into the year of this “magnitude” is highly unusual. Ah well like many things in life, its all perspective.

I was touched by the words given by a retiring sociology professor who was leaving a life of over 30 years of service as a teacher and moving to Prince Edward Island. With a quiet manner she shared an experience of hers that occurred many years ago when she stood at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

She had just tragically laid her young child to rest and in a desperate need to assume a level of inner control, she made the trip to Israel as part of her “planned depression” alone. As she stood with downcast eyes in front of the wall, lost in her privacy, and slowly beginning to give into her bottled up emotions, she looked up into a man’s eyes that she could only describe as being the kindest she had ever seen. He gently asked her what was wrong. She felt the dam give way within her and she poured on him all that she had tried to contain within her being. With words borne of sincere compassion he acknowledged her pain.

“If there was someone who embodied what I imagined our Lord to be like. It was him in those moments.” She stated with a slight quiver in her voice.

She stopped her story and turned to the school faculty in full regalia sitting behind her and then to the graduating students that sat in front of her and thanked them for providing her with such joy and fulfillment over the years. She said she would miss them and also being on the campus of CUC. She could barely think of leaving them now. However her heart called to her beyond the mountains and after years of leading she was now ready to follow.

“My heart opened at the Wall. And now I’m following it to P.E.I. Where I will spend the rest of my days with the man whose eyes still look at me with such compassion. My soulmate. My husband.”

Later in the evening I ran across a poem hidden in one of my friend’s blogs. It was the only entry. Originally lifted from a song by the great Sinatra, it summed up my thoughts and feelings and is a perfect reaction to what I had experienced earlier in the day. I leave it with you now.


Each time I see a crowd of people
Just like a fool I stop and stare
It's really not the proper thing to do
But maybe you'll be there

I go out walking after midnight
Along the lonely thoroughfare
It's not the time or place
To look for you

But maybe you'll be there
You said your arms would always hold me
You said your lips were mine alone to kiss
Now after all those things you told me
How can it end like this

Someday if all my prayers are answered
I'll hear a footstep on the stair
With anxious heart I'll hurry to the door
And maybe you'll
Be there

Maybe You'll Be There