Where is Hope?

 

    What do you do when you receive news that pushes the bottom out of your heart, news that fractures any sense of stability you‘ve held on to despite the pandemic? I think about how many people have been in that position of getting news that someone they love has had their world turned upside down by addiction, accident, job loss, or other calamity. This, on top of pandemic, can shatter most anyone.

    When someone gets this kind of news, the question often surfaces: What can I do to help the situation? Often the answer is “not much” or even “nothing.” This feeling of being alone and without help when there is a crisis is enough to raise a cloud of frustration, even despair in most of us.

    Questions arise: How much more can a person carry?  Where is God in all this mess? In her head a Christian knows the answer is that God is present in the midst of it, but this question itself comes not from the head but from the heart. Answers are less black and white and more a matter of faith or trust.                  

    But where in this maelstrom of pain, disappointment, and helplessness does a person with faith find any hope? If God is there, hope has to be there as well, but in our current days where so much is nebulous, hope can be hard to find. Sometimes it helps if we try to open our ears and eyes, then look around.

    Do you notice the food servers and dish washers in that small restaurant where you picked up a lunch? They likely need to be there despite health risks. How about the folks who collect the trash you put curbside? Have you thought about how medical workers and teachers risk their health to do their jobs? What about generosity of carpenters who make free in-home desks for poor kids who have to go to school online? Each one is a manifestation of God’s care for us.

    But it’s not just adults who reveal God’s presence. What about kids who step up to do odd jobs for neighbors? How about kindergartners who make cards for shut-ins? Then there are older kids who go out of their way to relieve their parents by giving extra attention to their siblings.

     In other words, God is revealed in the actions of people who reach out to those who need help, and believe it or not, there’s a lot of that giving going on all around us. I think we see it, but often it doesn’t register as something special. The Uber driver, the cop on the corner, the grocery store clerks, postal workers, and many others are risking health to be of service and trying to keep their businesses afloat.

    When hopelessness, anxiety, and frustration surface in our daily lives during these trying times, try to recall the nearness of God’s love by paying special attention to its manifestations in our neighbors and even ourselves. Hope is around and within; we just need to pay attention to the ubiquitous signs of its presence.

                   
           Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB

Some Thoughts on Expectations and Truth in Today's Society

      You’re dead tired. Would you choose a 2-legged chair in which to collapse? Hardly! You’d know what to expect; you’d wind up on the floor! You assume the laws of nature will hold true, so you save yourself a tumble.

      Have you ever thought about how much we take for granted every day, how important it is that what we trust to happen actually does? Think about your reactions when your morning alarm doesn’t go off, your car won’t start, traffic lights malfunction, or your computer breaks down.

      It’s one thing when electronics disappoint us, but what about when a human does? A co-worker misses an important deadline on your project and doesn’t take it seriously. You look forward to meeting a friend for lunch and she cancels at the last minute with no apology. What if it happens a 2^nd time? After the 1^st time a little trust leaks out of the relationship. Happens again? The leak turns into a flow that can resist attempts at repair. As Louisiana author Mahogany SilverRain says, “Peace and trust take years to build and seconds to shatter.”

       Truth is intimately connected with trust, and society runs on this blend. We expect machines to do what the advertising says they’ll do. We expect shop & grocery clerks to know their craft and be helpful to customers. Public officials are supposed to serve the public. News outlets are supposed to tell us the truth about what is happening in our local and broader world.

                       

      This delicate fabric of truth and trust is facing major stresses today. The role of multiple sources, exaggeration, individual truth, fake news, plus an overall skepticism in the general public are combining to fray this relationship. It's hard to decipher what is true; the interconnected age we live in is so highly complex that answers to questions and solutions to problems are not simple. Add to this the fact the world is changing so rapidly that things true even a few years ago are not so straightforward now. No wonder there are pockets of people who only agree with things they think they already know, accepting nothing that contradicts their current belief system so often rooted in the past..

      All this raises for me a question as old as humankind, but made famous by Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” It’s quite relevant in today’s social climate and raises a number of deeper questions:

·         Is truth black and white or can it be varied shades of grey?

·         Is truth absolute, the same in all times and places? If so, why do people so often disagree with each other?

·          Can truth be defined clearly?

·         How do you tell when something is true or a lie? Is there something in between?

      Because people build their lives on what they think is true, the ambiguity of truth in today’s climate makes it difficult to know whom or what to trust. Businessman and keynote speaker Stephen Covey says, “Trust is the glue of life…the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” If this is as true as it seems, what are the implications for Christians and other people of good will?

      Here are some bits of wisdom I ran across that I find helpful:

            The one who trusts in his own heart is a fool… (Prov. 28:26)

            Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. (William Shakespeare, “All’s Well that Ends Well”

            A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

                                    (English preacher Charles Spurgeon)

            Trust but verify. (American president Ronald Reagan)

            Trust not in ourselves but God. (2 Cor. 1:9)

      I conclude from all this that individuals of good will can help society recover from its current chaos by not taking a single source’s “truth” at face value.  Instead, each of us should tap into the wisdom of multiple sources, including tradition and a group larger than a handful of people. This process should include comparing this new “truth” with the universal truths from faith and morality that have endured for thousands of years. This is not easy because it takes work, but trying to be people of faith and hope has always been a challenge. I love this quote for its hopefulness:  “The deep roots never doubt spring will come.” (writer Marty Rubin)

Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB