Golf outings - what we do to lure those otherwise too busy or too distracted, to our cause. Even if they don't have time to pay attention to their own grass, perhaps they will play for a few hours on our grass, and do something good too.

This is the time of year when anything seems possible. Homeless people don't freeze to death overnight, food pantries stock their shelves with fresh tomatoes, and no one worries if there will be Christmas for their children, yet.

The summer stretches out in front of us like that perfect game we know from behind the first tee. And then we actually play that game, and the grains of too many sand traps stick in the creases of our elbows and scratch our forehead as we wipe off the sweat and smearing sunscreen.

It turns out our season of hope is not a game, isn't found on the golf course. True hope grows between the cracks of concrete in this season, in this city, where grit blowing off the sidewalk sticks to our arms. Hope is a truck, and a hot dog, and a rap song, and neighbors dancing in the evening, together, where only fear had played for too many years. Hope is the S.H.A.L.O.M. that lives on a street for a night, in the city, because a few people, who have long forgotten about their own grass, have chosen to sow life.