When hope wanes...
I don’t have the most helpful thoughts on this but at the bottom I put some podcasts/books that have been especially hopeful and helpful to me as I navigate fear, anxiety, and cynicism regarding our present time.
“Bad times, hard times—this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: such as we are, such are the times.” -St. Augustine of Hippo
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” Isaiah 65:17
“Lord God, Alpha and Omega, let your kingdom—-your shalom, your new society—come on earth as it is in heaven, as it will be in the New Jerusalem when you make your home among us.” -Bobby Gross
“Eternity is, in part, what we are now living.” -Dallas Willard
May I be the millionth person to say what a year. This year has been one of incredible uncertainty, disappointment, and division. Globally we have felt the realization that we are unable to think our way out of the problem(s) we face, which we have long believed could always be done.
We have experienced community wide waiting, wondering, longing.
Cynicism, already a culprit of hope and joy in my generation, has risen. A friend of mine said early on she didn’t think this would ever end. And she said it void of sarcasm. She actually believed that. Perhaps you do, too. Or at least feel as if that is true.
For most any hopeful anticipation has waned and been replaced with a weary resignation. Or perhaps an angry resolution.
Of course, for most American, our waiting has also been for the election. Perhaps you believe if your guy won then maybe, maybe, good could be found once again.
I have never been incredibly moved to pray for America. Prayers for my nation’s political leaders have been limited and when they do occur they often come out of a feeling of this ought to be done. This year, like many, has been different for me.
Prayer for our country has been perhaps the only solace I have found when worry and confusion weigh heavy. Fear has left me spiraling and a prayer, recited or not, anchors me. That and the reminder to remain quietly attune to and involved in my community, in my circle of influence, with love and hope.
The potential outcomes of this election, this ongoing pandemic, are vast. There are ways we can advocate and work for the betterment of our country, but more tangibly I think about how I can work, advocate, and love my community. I don’t know how to solve a nation’s problems, but I do know how to bring a meal to a sick friend, tend a garden, listen to a friend talk about their troubles, feed a hungry cat, and smile at a neighbor. These are quiet and simple things, far from grand, and also at times far from easy. And yet...
When the rug is flung out beneath us and our eyes and hearts feel glazed over by all the hatred, grief, and disappointment of this time what else can we do but pray and love our neighbor?
This seems foolish, doesn’t it? Perhaps passive? But if we are trying to believe that God and his kingdom are at work now and if we are trying to believe that he loves us and this world and if we are trying to believe that we are working alongside him and with him to further his kingdom of peace, joy, love right now in our everyday lives wouldn’t prayer be just the thing? And wouldn’t attention to the specific world around us—our actual neighbors, our local schools, our church, our friends and family—-be the place to begin to act in love and peace and hope?
All of this can be done, should be done, regardless of who wins the election. Regardless if the man we placed all our hope in to “save America” becomes President or not.
May God bless us and keep us and make his face to shine upon us. May we remember that he hears our prayers and may love and hope fill our hearts and stir the work of our hands.
Things that have been hopeful and helpful:
Renewing the Center podcast, episode learning to walk with God
Poetry Unbound podcast, episode Wonder Woman
You’re Not that Special podcast, Such are the Times
Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
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