Again, for this week I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."

There is also a deep longing for the bread of hope. In the early years of this century many people did not hunger for this bread. The days of the first telephones, automobiles, and airplanes gave them a radiant optimism. They worshiped the shrine of inevitable progress.... But then a series of tragic developments, revealing the selfishness and corruption of man, illustrated with frightening clarity the truth of Lord Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This awful discovery led to one of the most colossal breakdowns of optimism in history... Many concluded that life is an endless pain with a painful end, and that life is a tragicomedy played over and over again with only slight changes in costume and scenery... But even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope.

King could be writing about the world in which we live in 2009! I was talking to someone this week who was concerned about the welfare of older folks who are looking at their retirement funds going down the tube in the stock market fall. He mentioned how in a previous day, suicides went up among these people. It was a way to make sure they left something for their loved ones. It was a way to not have to face the loss of the lifestyle in which they were accustomed. We all need to live within a sense of hope. It is what feeds our ability to move forward with a sense of life that is full even when it looks and feels empty. It is knowing that our worth is established no matter what the evidence of the day hands us. We need to be fed with the bread of life that keeps us from being swallowed up by all that does not look like the best or the most positive. This is not merely dealing with our economy. There are all the parts of our lives that don't look as good as we would like. Such things - such daily things - can bring us down and make us look at the day as though we are in a hopeless time. Our God continues to offer us bread to eat...life to live...ready for us to take and eat and live.

Connection: Eating the bread of hope is needed within the common and ordinary of this day. It is right here and now that we all deal with that which tries to suck us dry of life and hope.

Lord of All Hopefulness, hold us and lead us and remind us that in and through all things you promise to hold us up and keep us faithful when it is so easy to turn away from your word of promise and trust other things. Be with us this day, O God. Amen.