Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Now, normally, I don’t even recall the words to this, but I was reciting it as I was waking up. I do this most every morning. As I am waking up I am either having a conversation with someone who is not in my life or discussing a topic not relevant to my waking life. It is a fascinating thing indeed. If I can recall what I am saying, it leads to some interesting discoveries.

I got up to do my usual email and website checks. Since a feed I use was down and causing havoc in my sites, making it so I couldn’t can’t do any posts or work in them, I decided to work on some new images. As I was going through a disc of old images, I came across one I had started last fall. It was meant to be for my son for Christmas, but I never finished it.

As I was looking at it, the title came to me “Looking For Hope”

I wanted to add something else to the image…which at this point was just tree branches surrounding a bright ray of sunshine. I wanted to add another image to the center where the light was. I got to thinking about images that signified Hope.

Well, there is the Dove - the sign that gave Noah hope that the waters would be receding. And there is the…..oh my gosh, it hit me! There is the Statue of Liberty!
Now, I don’t want to put the Statue of Liberty in the center of this image, but how weird that I woke up reciting the words on the Statue of Liberty!

Now, my mind was spinning….references to hope….so many topics and memories, current events, all came racing to my thoughts. Then a song title - which has been my absolute favorite song since I was in Jr. High - The Last Resort by the Eagles.

EAGLES LYRICS

“The Last Resort”

She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place people were smilin’
They spoke about the red man’s way,
and how they loved the land
And they came from everywhere
to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars,
out for a good time,
Can’t wait to tell you all,
what it’s like up there
And they called it paradise
I don’t know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
while the town got high

Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast, to
the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught ‘em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,
people bought ‘em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: “Jesus is coming”
Brought the white man’s burden down
Brought the white man’s reign

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name
of God

And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it’s like up there
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye

With Global Warming, the war and the greed of the present administration (not to mention the mis-use of claiming to be doing God’s bidding) and the immigration issues, this song is so relevant for today. The song even references the Statue of Liberty…the Mother of Exiles.

I could see that so much more than how to finish this image was going on…..here we are, as a country, in the middle of an election year, looking for change, looking for hope to end the madness that has been going on.

I’ll let this swirl around in my head for a few days and see what comes of it in regards to the above image. But as I was talking to my son and daughter about this today, I asked them…what do you think of when you think of the word Hope?

What images or symbols do you think of?

(Below is the entire poem that is on the Statue of Liberty)

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883