There is a Carole King song made famous by the “Drifters” and James Taylor called “Up On The Roof” and the opening verse goes something like this…”When this old world starts getting me down and people are just too much for me to face. I climb way up to the top of the stairs and all my cares just drift right into space. On the roof, it’s peaceful as can be and there the world below can’t bother me.  Let me tell you now…On the roof, the only place I know where you just wish to make it so…up on the roof!”

The roof of the Spiritual Center as you know from previous musings is my quiet little place where God, The Great River and I have some great conversations.  However, as the weather has turns cold my days and evenings up on the roof are coming to an end unless I can find some very warm clothes and decide to brave the cold of winter. I will find other ways to rest with God and the Great River but my favorite place has always been those quiet moments “up on the roof!”

One of the lines of the song above that always seems to foster hope in my life during my time “up on the roof” is that the roof that is “the only place I know where you can wish and make it so…” I know that hope is not just a wish but for me at times, hope starts, is enlivened and maintained with wishes and dreams.  So I do not shy way from continuing to wish and dream.

By the time you get this, Advent will be over and we will be in the season of Christmas and a New Year.  Yet, as I muse this morning the words of the Advent prophets are very present to me.  They were people I believe who wished, who dreamed, who hoped!  They did not always see their wishes, dreams and hopes come true but I bet Isaiah and the other prophets went “up on the roof” to wish, dream and hear God’s voice of hope that it might be so at least for that moment as they journeyed through their life of faith!

In the spirit of these great prophets of Hope like Isaiah I too look ahead so let me take you for a few moments “up on my roof” to celebrate a moment of Hope and look towards a New Year with some wishes, dreams and hopes that perhaps can be made so.  After all as the song says, “There’s room enough for two up on the roof!”

I wish in and through the media we were more concerned about the ordinary people who truly make a difference with their lives each day in little ways rather than Tom and Kate, Jennifer and Vince, Britney, Paris, Brad and Angelina and the host of others who we seem to make so important!

I wish we would hear, talk and make a big deal out of books like My Life with the Saints by James Martin, SJ and Clemente by David Maraniss and Abraham by Bruce Feiler, that speak to us of values and truth rather than books like the Da Vinci Code  that just tell a good fictional story!

I wish leadership would learn to lead in the spirit of truth rather than in the spirit of what will get them elected or bring in the most money!

I wish truth was a value!

I wish winning was not so important!

I wish sports and entertainment figures were not thought to be heroes!

I wish more young women and men valued religious life and priesthood!

I wish leaders would take the “high road” rather than the road of confrontation and negativity!

I wish the corporate world really cared about people rather than just profits!

I wish the bad guys did not have guns, I wish the good guys did not have guns!

I wish the leaders of the Church would worry more about unity, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice and peace rather than who stands at the altar, who preaches, when the wine is poured, who washes out the cups and what songs are sung!

I wish religious, deacons, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes lived and ministered as shepherds and servants rather than people who demand the entitlements of princes and kings!

I wish we could find the good in all faiths, cultures and peoples rather than live with anger and resentment toward all faiths, cultures and peoples who are not like us!

I wish we truly valued all life not just birth or the life of people who think and believe just like us!

I wish no person would ever train for war again!

I wish we would learn to value, live with and respect God’s creation rather than master and abuse it!

I wish that no child, no person for that matter, was or will be abused or hurt by a priest or any other human being!

I wish the Eucharist was a table of forgiveness, welcome and unity rather than a table of exclusion!

I wish peace for Jerusalem and the world!

As we journey through Advent, Christmas and celebrate the New Year let’s not forget to live in Hope, the hope of what can be made so…perhaps for the moment it is made so just “up on the roof” but we live in the gift of God’s hope and that it will be made so amongst us!

Have a Hope Filled Year…

Peace in Christ’s Passion, Fr. Paul

Hopeful Musings