We Still Have Daffodils

I am writing tonight to tell you that we still have daffodils.

Oh, I know. Some days, it doesn't feel like it.

Lately, I've been finding it difficult to believe that daffodils still have the courage to push out of their dry bulbs resting deep in the dark winter earth, to grow upwards toward the sun, to unfold their yellow blossoms, cheerful and strong, in the spring winds.

We have death in this world. And grief. And a culture that has forgotten how to mourn.

We have broken relationships and betrayals and lies. People fall into darkness and do unspeakable things to the people they love. There is so much pain.

We have stress and anxiety and world full of people who resort to anger without stopping to think what's making them feel so bad, or figuring out how to fix it.

We have hungry children and financially strapped elders and a world full of refugees that need and deserve a fresh start. Veterans and mentally ill and people who have been phased out of work struggle to find their place in a changing world that they don't fully understand.

We have millions of human beings shut away in prisons on the theory that we are safer without them. Or that somehow this will solve the problems that led to their crimes. Or that this is justice. But we do not talk to them, or listen to them. From them, we learn nothing.

We have prideful hypocrites who hijack Christianity and turn it into something selfish, judgmental and mean. People who walk in the light and love of God are swept aside in this ugly torrent of false religion, and struggle to show the world the true face of Jesus Christ.

We have a president who has turned our country upside down and insulted every principle for which America stands. Every day, he injures the people he has sworn to protect, degrades our way of life, and casts doubt upon our collective future.

We have a world where sweet red dogs get sick and die, and their lives slip away right through the very fingers of the people who love them best. And there are a thousand different ways every day to miss them.

All these things are true. I won't deny them.

But I won't give up or give in.
Against all logic, I will push on.

I will do what I can to make a difference in my little corner of the world.
I will love the people that God puts in my path.
I will let the darkness and the indifference and the outright hate flow right past me.
I will hope.

And I will write to you, now and again, to remind you that we still have daffodils.