I am a regular listener of the Morning Show on MPR. Dale and Jim Ed never fail to make me laugh, cry, think. They also introduce me to new music and musicians I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. This morning they played a song called "Witness to Hope" which was not only lovely but also had very beautiful words….and a challenge.

Be a Witness to Hope. I was particularly taken with the song because I have just finished reading The Middle of Everywhere:Helping Refugees Enter the American Community by Mary Pipher. Pipher, a psychologist and author, has been a cultural broker for countless refugees from all over the world. The book is filled with stories of terror, poverty, torture, grief, oppression, racism, and unbelievable government bureaucracy. But it is also filled with amazing stories of hope. Hope for a better life. Hope for a brighter future for children. Hope for peace. Hope for understanding and compassion. Hope for an end to suffering.Hope for dreams fulfilled.

In reading this book I was humbled by the people who gave everything they had for their children or another relative, sometimes even their lives. The experiences of these courageous people filled me with humility. I can’t even imagine living through what so many did to be in this country. And the fact that so many of the stories were also filled with an audacious hope challenges me.

In my place of privilege, my safe life, my comfortable home, where I have more than enough, how could I not also make it my daily work to be a witness to hope? It is the least I can do to honor the hard work and lives of these new citizens, these new neighbors.It is the least I can do to nurture this quality which has the power to transform lives…to transform the world.

The author quotes William Saroyan: "The most interesting thing about the world is its fantastic and unpsychoanalyzed charatct, its wretched and gallant personality, its horrible idiocy and its magnificent intelligence, its unbelievable cruelty and its equally unbelievable kindness, its gorilla stupor, its canary cheerfulness, its thundering divinity, and its whimpering commonness."

Hope………may I…..may you…..may we….be witnesses of hope this day.