05 Mar Hope in the Dark
The lemon tree in our backyard is barely three feet tall, and yet it carries the largest lemons I have ever seen. At least twenty hang from it now, heavy enough to bend the branches almost to the ground. It seems like too much. I look at it and think, you were not built for this kind of weight, little tree.
A recipe calls for lemon juice, so I walk outside. I bend down and twist a lemon from the stem. The branch that had been heavy with the lemon rises immediately, returning to its natural posture as if it meant to reach for the sky all along.
In the kitchen, I slice the lemon open and pause. A seed has split and is growing inside. A thin green curve presses upward from the center of the fruit. I hadn’t expected that. I stand there looking at this green sprout reaching toward a light it has never seen.
The lemon seed had no proof of the sun. No guarantees of soil to tether its roots. The fruit might have fallen and dried in the yard, the seed trapped inside. There was no way for the seed to know what would come next.
And still, it began.
There is something so hopeful about that.
Like the seed, we are not promised endings.
We begin conversations that may not change anything. We offer kindness that may not be returned. We love people who might not stay. We reach out to help people who may decide against our help.
In all of these small acts, we are not guaranteed success. There is no way of knowing ahead of time if it will change anything or if it will lead to the outcome we would like most.
Like the seed, we move in the direction of hope — even in the dark.