the city comes to mind as i stare out at the snow covered lake, sno flakes starting to fall and a friends music playing through my earphones. the faces i know and remember in kolkata the life i know of kolkata. and i ask him how i live the things hes cultivating in my heart, knowing it is much beyond my own self and yet realizing i often make it bigger than it ever needs to be.

the words on a friends blog i found my thoughts from last week, the question of what hope is or where to find it within despair, within the deep of darkness. though there are signs of hope walking and laughing within the walls of the business theyve come to. yet when you turn away from that light, it can feel like all you can see is darkness.

yesterday during the sermon my mind drifted back to this place, as we talkd about the beatitudes and what it means to blessed. my mind went to what it would mean to bless the women, the girls there as they are without so much blessing of what i know and have in my hands. in a material understanding and a much deeper one, one that is found within a redemption they may not know. personhood brings this blessing to them