Hope Cafe

I'd like help to realize my dreams.  Need someone, like a soul-dentist, to wrench them free and give me hope again...

And then there are the people I meet - who have nothing.  No family, no support systems, no steady living situation.  These are the forgotten.

There are those who have watched institutions they love crumble and ebb away.

And I wonder...what is this world trying to tell us?

You and I are invited this Advent - to a place called 'hope'.
This place, I like to think, is a ambiance-filled cafe on the downtown corner of a sleepy town.
Hope is a place to be restored when there seems like nothing left.
When you feel gutted by the world and her emptiness...and the emptiness of soul that visits.

Hope is a cafe.
Its a place where you can warm up and let your shoulders down from 'stress'.
Its a place where you can discuss ideas,
be a momentary thespian (that is, theatre-speak for actor),
a momentary philosopher, a political or cultural commentator
and offer memorable diagnostics on the state of things.
Its a place where you speak your heart and feel the thrill of grasping new beginnings.

Hope is a place where people listen to one another.
They hear the deeper things - like the passion underlying someone's convictions.
Hope is a place where others take the pains to get to know you...
and in the process you get to know yourself.

So grab a mocha-whatever and join me at the cafe.
"Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead...
   and Christ will shine on you!"

- Father Aaron