If this year were a beverage, it would be a colonoscopy prep. The saying isn’t original to me, but it sums up this year pretty well. This year was already behind the eight ball because the occupant is slowly destroying our country while pandering to his cronies. Adding a global pandemic and the cascade of related crises creates burdens that everyone feels to some extent. I could create a list that would fill this entire page.
Instead, I encourage you to make your own list. Take a moment and consider how your life is impacted by everything related to the pandemic. List what is uncertain, what worries you, your concern for your family, financial worries and don’t forget the global concerns that no doubt will continue to impact us all. Take some time and write a list. Review your list. Then cut yourself some slack. Have some compassion for yourself. These are tough times. You are doing the best you can. Let that sink in for a moment. You are doing the best you can.
Hopelessness often comes from feeling out of control, that there is nothing we can do to change the situation. Another component of hopelessness is the kind of wishful thinking that just sets us up for disappointment. Magical thinking is not hope. Last time I checked there were no fairy godmothers hanging around waiting to grant our heart’s desire. Equally unhelpful in the search for hope is the “always look on the bright side,” “things could be worse,” “just buck up and keep a positive outlook” twaddle that happy-clappy religious people peddle when they have never really known what it is like to feel hopeless.
True hope is of much stronger stuff than wishful thinking and trite phrases. In the familiar words of 1 Corinthians 13, hope is inextricably bound to faith and love. Faith, at its simplest is belief in Something bigger than ourselves. Love, at its simplest, is recognizing that the Divine is at work in all of creation and responding with the best we have to offer. Hope is a belief in the possibility that things can be different. When faith, hope and love combine, they dive deeply into the heart of the Divine and into the essence of what it means to be human. Combine faith, hope and love and there’s something to hold on to.
It’s important to say that hope is not tied to a specific outcome; it doesn’t depend on certainty. Trying to engineer the outcome falls back into the wishful thinking category. Rather, it is the belief there is potential for something different to happen. In like fashion, it is also the belief that the present difficulties have not eclipsed good things happening at this moment in time.
We see how the pandemic has brought out the worst in people, but it has also brought out the best in people. Hope can be found by looking for the little and big things that people do to make life better. I am continually in awe of health care workers who keep showing up and doing what needs to be done because this is their vocation, not just their job. It is their purpose in this life. I find great hopefulness in this. I find hope in the kind actions of strangers whose eyes smile behind the masks, who take a moment to thank essential workers and show politeness when others are being jerks.
Sure, there are many things that are beyond our control, but not everything is beyond our control. Hope is something in which we must actively participate. It means that we can be the change we want to see. The little changes we make in ourselves can be a source of energy that moves us forward. Actively participating in something that makes a positive change begins to shift our perspective. When we are looking for kindness, we tend to find it. Actively participating in life is a trustworthy toe hold in hope.
Comfort and hope also can be found in some things that are beyond our control. I find great comfort in the fact that the sun rises every day. There is nothing I have to do but pay attention. There is a steadiness to the rhythm of days that is grounding and centering.
Hope always hovers above the moment and calls beyond itself while holding fast to faith and love. We find hope in baby steps not giant leaps, in the places we look expecting to find something good. We find hope when we embody the change we want to see in the world.
The Irreverent Reverend 