Hope deperately needed
Author and Business Creativity Expert, Fredrik Haren, states that the heart of most successful new ideas is when one takes two previously unconnected ideas and puts them together to form a radically new concept.
Since both ideas independently already had meaning and each had a following, putting them together compounds their impact.
Twenty years ago, before Fredrik Haren developed that thesis a Kelowna developer proved its validity.
On one hand he took a Christmas tree. I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t love Christmas trees. Whether trimmed to perfection by a designer or patched together in the most rag-tag fashion there is a magnetic draw to this annual symbol.
The lights pull us like moths to a flame and special ornaments evoke deep memories. In our home we have one ornament that is so loved we have already declared that when we are dead and gone our two adult children must share it on rotating Christmases.
Christmas trees have a massive draw in and of themselves. So, to start his new idea this Kelowna developer took a Christmas tree.
Then, he took the most intimate and desperately needed commodity known to humankind, “hope.” Hope is that Godinspired inner belief that no matter how dark the night, no matter how large the opponent, no matter how bleak the forecast, somehow the sun will shine again and one’s life will somehow encounter renewed joy and meaning.
So our local developer took a Christmas tree in one hand, and hope in the other and he combined these two previously unconnected ideas and reintroduced them in what has become a Christmas landmark in Kelowna, The Tree of Hope.
Each year for the past 20 years I have watched for its light up. Like you, I am fascinated by the lights and the glitter. I’m encouraged by children singing and drinking hot chocolate, waiting excitedly for the switch to be thrown. Those are precious and lasting memories. But most of all, I am moved by the fact that the tree can be seen from almost anywhere in the city, proclaiming its simple but inspiring message of hope. If Christmas is about anything it’s about hope. It’s about God stepping directly into human history and declaring that no matter how dark the night, His light can shine again.
It’s a message desperately needed in 2017. Parents who are hoping against hope that their teenager will not be taken by the fentanyl storm; single parents, wondering how they are going to make it through the next month; elderly members of our city, wondering whether they will have any joy after losing their partner of 50, 60, or more years; the working poor whose lease is up wondering if there will be any place for them to live; there are more than enough storms to preoccupy us all.
And then the Tree of Hope is lit and with its light comes fresh inspiration. Could it be that even in our darkest days, with God’s help, we will find a way?
Fortunately each year the Tree of Hope does more than inspire wishful thinking. Through the generosity of sponsors, worthwhile charitable projects are embraced and supported, proving that hope is more than warm thoughts, it is tangible actions.
2018 will bring its dark days, of that we can be sure. But equally as sure is the message of hope that shines brightly from one great big tree in the center of town.
Tim Schroeder is pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Kelowna. This column appears every Saturday in Okanagan Weekend.