“Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all… As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” ~G.K. Chesterton
It doesn’t feel like harvest time. The autumn leaves have fallen away, and so have our hopes for a quick fix to this mad pandemic. Like the fields and trees, our optimism has gone bare. But barrenness is an illusion. Late fall is the time of ingathering, of storing up. Throughout history, people have celebrated the harvest not when the fields were full, but when they were bare. When the hard work of ingathering had been completed, and the storehouses were full. Hope is the same. It’s a storehouse, a time of huddling by the fires of memory. A time to remember that the barrenness of winter is an illusion. And that beneath the frozen ground, even now, the seeds planted by hope are preparing sprout in the spring.
Click on any image to enlarge it, or the begin slide show.
BOUNTIFUL HARVEST:AS THE SUN RISES,PRISONERS AT THE IWAHIG PENAL COLONY IN PUERTO PRINCESA ,PHILIPPINES START TO HARVEST PALAY AT THE PRISON’S FARM THE INMATES TENDING THEMSELVES….ERNIE PENAREDONDO/PHOTO
Mitch Teemley 
“Genuine hope is not blind optimism. I is hope with open eyes, which sees the suffering and yet believes in the future.” – Juergen Moltmann
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Amen, Steve.
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Never heard that G.K. Chesterton quite before, it’s amazing. And thank you for the application to the current day!
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*quote, not quite
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A beautiful, timely reminder. And GORGEOUS pictures! Thank you for that. It brings Romans 8:24 to mind: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
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Beautiful crop
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Lovely words and images. Thank you for posting, Mitch. I needed this message this week.
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A beautiful reminder and beautiful pictures. I love the harvest time and the reflection it brings.
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Emily Dickinson wrote
“Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune
Without the words
And never stops at all.
And Sweetest -in the gale- is heard,
And sore must be the storm,
That could abash the little bird,
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea,
Yet -never- in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”
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Love that poem. Blessings, dear Elizabeth.
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What fabulous photos! Thanks!
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Beautiful, Mitch.
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We reap during the good times what we sow during the bad times.
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Very true.
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