"Anxious Hope"

22x30 Watercolor

Getting out of bed means the day will have to begin.
Going to bed at night means having to relive this again soon.

Moving through the day in a sleep-haze gets it over quickly.
Insomnia at night buys more time until tomorrow's insanity arrives.

Longing not reached
Yearning not fulfilled
Passion not lived
Hope still elusive.

The Disappointment Myth

I’m not sure what it was that opened you up to the world of disappointment.  Perhaps your first taste came when you realized Santa didn’t always bring everything you asked for.  Or maybe it was when you realized there was no man in a red suit and it was your parents all along.  Worse, maybe it came when your Santa-playing-parents told you they were splitting up.

Over the years I’m sure your disappointment has taken on all shapes and sizes.  Some disappointments are very small, like the pickles placed on your “plain” cheeseburger.  Others are incredibly large, like the hole in your heart when a loved one left you.

Regardless, each time disappointment breaks in we feel as though something has been taken from us; a robbery of the worst kind.  It steals our innocence, kidnaps our truest self, and holds for ransom our best assumptions of others and this world. 

Once we are introduced to the world of disappointment many of us never leave.  It becomes our permanent place of residence.  We live in a state of perpetual disappointment for fear that something might capture our heart and affection only to have it swiped from us yet again.  Our instincts for self-preservation kick in and we decide no longer to attach ourselves to hopes, desires, and aspirations.

After all, if dreams are just a lure for the snare of disappointment, then skepticism might just keep us alive.

But that is the myth.

Skepticism may feel like a blanket of security, but it only suffocates the potential for new life to breath.  The strange reality is that the only true way to move out of the world of disappointment is to put yourself back out there; to aspire and hope again, and…

to run the risk of further disappointment.

But, this is where the nature of disappointment is revealed.  Disappointment is not the enemy or adversary.  Instead, disappointment is a gauge…

a barometer of our hope.

Disappointment is the proof that we are a people who take risks; that we are a people who dream.  Proof that we are a people, who in a broken world, believe healing is possible.

May you never be lost in the world of disappointment again.  May your disappointment reveal to you and others that you are someone who believes in the possible.  And may your disappointment be engulfed by the courage to dream again.

Giving Up On the Game

“How are you, young man?  No doubt you’re expecting a lecture, but I promise that’s the last thing I intend.  Your decision to leave medical school is your own entirely.  I can even understand and sympathize.  Around the third year, when exhaustion and nausea have taken up permanent residence in your bones, the healing profession seems less like a calling and more like and exercise in expedience and venality.  I understand that brand of despair better than I wish.  But it’s a different decision you’ve made that troubles me more deeply.

I mean your choice to give up golf.”                        - The Legend of Bagger Vance

Idealism, promise, expectation, hope.  These are all good things.  These elements do more than get us out of bed in the morning; they propel us into each day with the anticipation that something remarkable and worth while will take place.

We are a burst of energy in which no obstacle is too big.  Exhaustion never even gets a chance to yawn because we are awakened to a mission bigger than ourselves.  We embody the change we want to bring to the world and we believe we can do anything.

Then…

Challenge flanks us in a manner totally unexpected; completely blind-sided.  We see a side to the Opposition that we never saw before and we are left disarmed, disrobed, and disheartened.  The ideal, once fuel for life, offers nothing but the bitter taste of “what could have been”.

Cynicism encroaches as we question the work, the calling.  “What’s the point?”, “Why bother?” “Where’s the meaning?” become just a few of the rhetorical questions we feast on.  We come to a grinding halt.

We give up.  We are sidelined.  We are beaten.  Something within us dies.

And we are left with a choice:

Fade away until nothing is left.

or…

Keep playing.

May you, in your moment of defeat, your season of disillusionment, be filled with just enough promise to believe that giving up on the game is never an option.  And may you have the courage to keep showing up to the life no one else has been gifted to live.

Consuming Darkness

We have a unique relationship with darkness. As children we love to play and tell stories in the darkness. Yet if all light is extinguished our fascination turns to fear. When we get older darkness can even become a nuisance (ever stub your toe on the edge of your bed in the middle of the night?). As an adult we may even experience a darkness that as children we never knew: a darkness of the soul.

Some refer to it as despair, hopelessness, and depression, yet the feelings it brings with it are the same. In the dark seasons of life a deep sadness and sense of meaningless seam to keep us incarcerated in a life that feels too small; void of any breath; void of any light. In darkness we loose our orientation to life and we become numb to the world around us; operating like a shell of our former self.

A darkness of the soul is deep, engulfing, and all consuming. In darkness, there are no easy answers. Sadly many who go through seasons of darkness are given platitudes to “help” them in “their” situation. “Maybe you’re not praying enough”, “This must be a result of some unconfessed sin in your life”, and (my personal favorite) “Just let go and let God…”

Articulating these sentiments can leave one feeling more alone, as if it is up to them (and their “prayer time”) to just “snap out of it” (see the advice Job received from his “friends”). Religious clichés like these leave little room for help and end up perpetuating a deeper sense of guilt leading one further down the spiral of hopelessness.

The darkness of the soul may seem void of any kind of spirituality. However, this is often the place where God is most present. In the place where the lights of life are shut out we are often taken to the end of “self”; the place where, because of total exhaustion, we surrender. It is in that moment a new light dawns and we begin to see more clearly than we ever have before.

There is no formula or time frame given through which the cloud will be lifted…darkness is a part of the journey.

If you are experiencing a season of darkness; you do not have to journey alone. Share your feelings with someone you trust, who loves you and can walk with you (a friend, family member, a counselor). As you feel swallowed in hopelessness, may you find solidarity with the Giver of Light who is never consumed by darkness and has made his dwelling among you.

When you find yourself experiencing a season of “light” be generous with the light that has been entrusted to you. Use it as a beacon of hope to those who are stuck and wondering, ushering them to the place of peace and hope.

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’” – Lamentations 2:4

The Pain of "Forget"

Throughout life there are experiences that we wish we could forget. Pains and past hurts that serve as an on-going reminder that we are “not okay”. Ironically there are also things within our life that we hope we never forget. The sound of the ocean tide sweeping the shore, the warmth of the sun on our face, the moment we had our first last kiss, and the time when our child invited us to come and play.

These moments of goodness are essential to our memory. They serve as a compass, always pointing us in the direction of possibility and hope.

Yet sometimes during the pains of life, we become so overwhelmed with a destructive reality that our capacity to “remember” life’s joys drastically diminishes. The opening narrative of Exodus tells of a good God who had continued in life-giving relationship with his people throughout the generations. God had expressed his goodness to Joseph and his descendants in such a way that all of God’s people knew their identity and their hope.

The story takes a dramatic turn with the death of Joseph’s generation and the birth of a king (who had no memory of the good past). These two events cause the collective memory of God’s goodness and promise fade away. Exodus 1:8 hits like a thud: “Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.” This was the turning point; the moment when God’s people began to forget.

When the difficulties of life come our way and begin to make for us a new reality, it becomes all too easy to forget the good of the past. Not only do we loose our hopeful memory of the past but we also let go of the possibility that good will re-emerge in the future.

Maybe in the midst of a difficult relationship, the loss of work or in declining health, your capacity to “remember” the goodness of life, and the One who created it, has escaped your memory. Yet this is not where the story ends. Pharaoh (and the lords of this earth may have forgotten) but the God of creation never forgets.

May you, whether wondering in pain or basking in joy, be reminded of a good God who has not forgotten.

Giving Dignity (Philemon: A Response Of Hope pt.2)

In our world we make distinctions and classifications between people and people groups. We not only label people based on ethnicity, class, gender, and political ideology, but we also treat people differently. Sadly, this classification system is how our society measures one's value and meaning (holding some in a higher regard and others in a lower) and in doing so, strips those who are "less than" of their God given dignity and humanity.

In Paul's day slavery was one of those clear class distinctions. There were the "haves", the "have-nots", and the "slaves". Slaves for the people of the 1st century were nothing more than commodities; bought, used, and sold to turn a profit. Their "worth" was only found in their ability to contribute the growth of their master's economic portfolio. Slaves knew no dignity.

It is in this light that Paul's words to Philemon (a slave owner) regarding his disobedient run-away slave (Onesimus) are earth-shaking: "Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever - no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother...welcome him as you would welcome me (v.15-17)." (listen to this week's Renovate podcast on Philemon).

In his short letter to Philemon, Paul is subversively dismantling the grid of classification and status by which his world operates. Paul sees Onesimus not as a slave who committed a crime, but as a brother who is of great value. Through his words Paul puts on display a new system; one that is charitable, equitable, and just, and in so doing, Paul challenges his contemporaries (like Philemon) to live by that same system.

This is the hope of the Gospel.

"What classifications and distinctions in our world rob people of their dignity?" "What are ways in which we can give dignity to others regardless of the class distinctions of our world?"

Our Love of Fear

I remember as a kid loving to be frightened by scary movies on the TV. We would watch Chukie terrorize people in "Child's Play", Jason stalk people at camp, and of course Freddy as he haunted people in their nightmares.

As we get older our fears change from fiction to reality. We fear the big things that threaten life and security: disease outbreak, corporations going belly up, and violence from foreign military powers. Our fears run deep into our being.

In his short book "Following Jesus", N.T. Wright writes this about fear: ...we're afraid of being alone, of being unloved, of being abandoned. We mix with other children, other teenagers, other young adults, and we're afraid of looking stupid, of being left behind in some race that we all seem to be automatically entered for. We contemplate jobs, and we're afraid both that we mightn't get the one we really want and that if we get it we mightn't be able to do it properly; and that double fear lasts for many people all through their lives. We contemplate marriage, and we're afraid both that we might never find the right person and that if we do marry it may turn out to be a disaster. We consider a career move, and are afraid both of stepping off the ladder and of missing the golden opportunity. We look ahead to retirement, and are afraid both of growing older and more feeble and of dying suddenly."

At first glance fear seems to be an unwanted emotion, something that has crept into our psyche keeping us from dreaming, trying, and doing. Yet the irony is that we as people love fear. For us living a life in fear allows us to live a life "in control". Our fears (so we think) keep us safe; safe from disappointment, sickness, and hurt.

And maybe this is the point of it all as we strive to follow the God of the Scriptures who is continually telling his children to "fear not"; that our pursuit of control (through a fear designed to "keep us safe") will never bring about the fullness of love and life that God desires for us. It is only when we can let go of our fears and need for control that we can freely walk in the hope of life and possibility.

In what areas of your life do you feel you have to "control"?
What "fears" are preventing you from stepping into new possibility?

Meaning Beyond Nihilism

Race Matters was written one year after the Los Angeles riots of 1993. In his book Professor Cornel West addresses issues of race relations that still need treatment today. West gives sharp assessment of racial distictives in America as well as the systems, morality (or lack of), and history that have perpetuated a discord between different people groups.

While many factors pose a hindrance to race relations, West underscores the destructive nature of Nihilism to the person and to the larger community.

West writes: Nihilism is the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. The frightening result is a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world...In fact, the major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather nihilistic threat-that is, loss of hope an absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.

What does it mean for someone to say that their life "has meaning"? How is "meaning" found? As people of hope, how do we live lives so that meaning is preserved of all people?