ISBC 9 - Hope is What We Do
Chapter 9 of Hope: A User's Manual
MaryAnn’s book shifts here from what hope is not to what hope is. To go back to where we started, much of what has been so far has been the dredging up of what doesn’t serve us well and now doing some of the work of refilling what has been dredged out.
So, the starting place is that hope is not a feeling but instead it is what we do. MaryAnn writes as she is sharing about Mitri Rehab, a Lutheran minister in Bethlehem.
And yet his motto—his statement of faith—is “hope is what we do.” I love the double meaning: hope is “what we do” in the sense of the business we’re in, like “writing and coaching is what I do.” But even deeper is this: Hope is wrapped up in what we make real. Hope isn’t what we think. Hope isn’t what we feel. Hope isn’t even what we imagine is possible. Hope is what we do in the face of suffering, pain, and injustice. Hope is what we do in the face of depression’s dull weight or grief’s harsh sting. Hope is what we do.1
It was almost exactly a year ago when I wrote this reflection during my final night on a congregational trip to an area in Belize where we were helping to build a community center.
Take a read at the post and also a listen to the Carrie Newcomer song I centered upon. At the heart of the song, as I hear it, is a sense of being willing to take action and to jump into hope. We can analyze (something I’m REALLY good at) and think too long (also REALLY good at) and we can miss the opportunities before us. We can analyze and think and reflect so much that action never happens. And per what MaryAnn shares here, analysis and thinking don’t often lead to hope in our lives or in the lives of others. They are an important part of it, yes, but it has to move into that which we do.
But the photo for today is not me on that plane a year ago but instead the primary reason we went on that trip in the first place. It was to celebrate the building of a needed community center in a village in Belize. It was seeing the results of years of dreams and hopes having come into the reality of concrete, walls, ceilings, a computer lab, a common area, a kitchen, a well dug, and so much more. It was analysis and thinking put into action. It is a tangible example of hope.
I would be remiss, however, after the quote from Mitri Rehab and sharing the photo of a building that has been constructed to not only be a community center but also a hurricane safe building, to not talk about the reality that tangible hope is very hard to find in many places in the world and maybe no more so than in the Palestinian Territories (where Rehab lives and serves) and especially even more so in Gaza. So much has been written and shared, prayed and lamented, but we have a responsibility to do what we can to help end the suffering that is taking place. We can pray. We can lament. But we can also call or handwrite (don’t email, don’t sign online petitions) our elected leaders asking them to do what they can to help bring about an end to this suffering and destruction. So in the midst of a time when so many buildings and lives have been destroyed in Gaza, may this photo of this building be an encouragement for us to do what we can. We can’t change the situation on our own but we can take actions that can lead to tangible hope in places where it sure seems hope is hard to find.
How has hope become tangible for you in your life? How have you made hope tangible in the lives of others?
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 50). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.