Despair Doesn’t Know

The Hibiscus opens to the morning. 
Green cocoon bloom becomes blaring red, 
shouts the sleep from my eyes. 
Hawaiian plant in my desert garden. 
A surprise. I didn’t know it shouldn’t grow here. 
I didn’t know I shouldn’t try. 

Hope is like that in a time 
when armies invade unlikely cities. 
The national guard, ICE roam across 
state borders, city boundaries as if ants 
with no regard except to orders from a queen 
or a king. 

We protest in the streets with cardboard signs. 
With hope that feels like despair that didn’t know better. 
Despair that didn’t know it shouldn’t try. 
We stand to be heard, we stand to be seen. 
Blaring like a Hibiscus that shouldn’t be here, 
shouting the sleep from your eyes. 

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The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.

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