Rocks and Sprinklers and Hope

At the end of the summer my family went to Indianapolis. One of our stops there was the Indiana Museum of Arts Sculpture Park.

One of the installations there is called Park of the Laments.

We walked through a dark tunnel to get to the exhibit, not knowing what was on the other side, not knowing the significance of the rock/basket walls around us. We were the only ones there, so we could take our time, checking it out.

Up the stairs and into a kind of courtyard, my family stepped onto the soft, well tended yard. I took in a big breath, glad for how peaceful it was there.

Then we read the flier to find out more about it.

Park of Laments was created to be a place of calling out, maybe in prayer or whatever else the visitor is inclined to do. It’s a space in which one can contemplate the wrong people do to one another, a place to lament it, an environment of letting it go.

I sat on a bench and looked at one of the walls, the trees and bushes soft against the rocks. I thought about genocide and human trafficking and the ways we harm one another. It’s dark, isn’t it? The ills of the world?

It’s easy to sit with those thoughts of darkness. It’s important that we know of them. That we wish to see an end to them. But, if you’re like me, the terror of it all can consume, dim the goodness that is still among us.

That was when I heard giggling. Then a little scream. A happy scream.

What I hadn’t noticed was the sprinkler on the other side of the courtyard. My kids took turns hopping through it, giggling and screaming, the day hot and the water ice cold.

I didn’t stop them. We were the only ones there, so I knew we wouldn’t disturb anyone.

In that place where one is asked to contemplate the bad, I saw that there is also relief. There is joy.

There’s this song we sing in church. It’s by Hillsong and is called No Other Name.

One stanza in that song gets me every single time.

Find hope, when all the world seems lost
Behold the triumph of the cross
His power, has trampled death and grief
Our life found in His name
The greatest name of all.

Today, even in the midst of bad reports and gloomy projections of the future, let’s be the people who in the midst of the muck and mud can find hope. Let’s be the people who, not only seek hope, but share it as well.

Because, here’s the thing, we are more than conquerors, my friends. We are.