Hollywood Moments and Hope in the Apples
By Melissa Tate
Melissa Tate is a native and resident of Birmingham, Alabama. She is an assistant professor of journalism/mass communication at Samford University, the wife of a Presbyterian (USA) pastor, and the mother of lovely Brittany and Grace, both high school seniors.

The Good Friday penitential service at our church is the most meaningful of the year for me. Sweet, simple, sad. The small congregation departs, blinking at the bright noon sun, subdued and a bit dazed as though leaving the funeral of a loved one. It is a slight disorientation of time and place, of wondering how to live in a world that has lost its center. Perhaps the disciples felt that blinking disorientation when their Lord was dead and they did not know that Easter was coming, when they had to face the struggle without hope.

I have had several personal "Good Fridays," all taking the form of depression, the feeling of being doomed to a world without resurrection, redemption or hope. Some has been situational: a response to divorce, career stress, family stress, illness and death. At these times, I could point to an external reason for the misery and I knew, at least intellectually, that time would help. But at other times the depression has come on with no apparent cause, when the only "reason" I had to feel so bad was "chemical imbalance." That doesn’t even temper the despair with the assurance that "time heals."

Where does hope go when it goes away? What makes it come back? These are my two stories.

The first happened quite a few years ago, just before my final visit to the infertility clinic my husband and I had been working with for about five years. It had been a long process of building up hope and having it crash down, slowly squeezing the life and joy out of both of us. But that morning we got a call from an adoption attorney we had visited about six months earlier. We had been selected to be the parents of a baby to be born in about two weeks. What a miracle! How could a gift so magnificent come to us at exactly the time when we were abandoning hope? It was like a dream, a Hollywood moment, for sure.

The other happened one day a few years ago when I was headed to a visit the counselor who was helping me work with my depression. I stopped at a grocery to get a snack. I bought one Red Delicious apple. Back in the car I polished it and took a bite. It was wonderful. Simple, sweet and juicy. The apple was good, and that was my sign that the depression was lifting and light was around the corner.

I cannot say how God's hand was involved in either of these events. Both involved elements of redemption and resurrection, both were unexpected moments of grace and reminders of the potential for hope, but also two different kinds of hope.

I can imagine that the disciples, when they heard of the resurrection, must have felt something like my husband and I did when we first held our sweet, fat baby. This was more than we could have ever hoped for. It was a dream, a Hollywood moment. But I don’t believe that we are well served by hoping for the Hollywood moments. They are elusive and unpredictable; many people do not get a sweet baby, and when our loved ones die they do not come back to us in a few days in earthly form.

I think it is better to hope for apples. I have had many good apples and I know that they can make your soul sing. When I am depressed, the apples are joyless nutrition, but I know the joy is still there. It is sweet, simple, satisfying. And I have hope that I will taste it soon.

This is the promise of Easter. It is like the apples. We cannot count on Hollywood moments, but we can count on the simple, perfect fruit, providing nourishment even when we are joyless, and joy when we can taste it.

Lord, like the apples, you are there, sweet and satisfying… with us and waiting for us. Lord, help us resurrect hope. Help us taste what you have put before us.

<<Back to Archive

View for Printing

Contributors
Staff
Advertising
Internships

Send this Page to a Friend

Add Me to Mailing List