Grief Seeking Hope
As we enter November, with Thanksgiving around the corner, my intention was to write a reflection on gratitude. But I am struggling with it. We’re in that funny in-between no-longer-fall, not-quite winter place of cold mornings and grey skies, and I feel a little “off,” and hopelessness is threatening to set up shop in my heart.
The world feels heavy right now. Innocent lives being lost in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Maine. Seemingly intractable conflict in our own country – not war, yet. And I am grateful that I live in a place that feels safe... mostly. For now. And in the midst of that heaviness, searching for gratitude seems almost frivolous – and privileged because I have so much to be grateful for. I will get to gratitude, but I’m not there yet. Right now, I am in a place of grief seeking hope.
I know hope still lives in my heart and in my soul. I get up out of bed every morning, after all. Paul’s prayer in his letter to the Ephesians keeps running through my mind, that God “may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know God, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which God has called you.”
Methodist minister and author, Jan Richardson, writes of this passage, “Paul bears witness to a Christ who wore our flesh and abides with us still, hoping for us when our hope is shattered, breathing new life into us, encompassing us in the arms of a community that holds us with hope.”
Jesus offers us a world beyond our imagining – the Beloved Community built on a foundation of love and compassion and hope. A place where the simple words of Jesus guide our lives – “love one another as I have loved you.” Christ invites us into the creation of this new world, and hope opens our hearts to the possibility.
I can feel hopeless when I think about the suffering and hardship, fear and pain, in the world around us. My actions feel impotent – what can one person do? But I am a person of faith and with the eyes of my heart, I reach for that hope to which God has called us. I reach out through tangible acts of love and deep prayers of love sent into the world. And I hope – no, I believe – that these offers of loving action and loving prayer have ripple effects, changing the cosmic energy of the world in ways beyond my imagining. And I do that work alongside God and alongside you.
We are blessed to be “in the arms of a community that holds us with hope.” None of us can do this work alone. I count on this community to step into this work with me, to challenge me, to be vulnerable with me and allow me to be vulnerable with you. I am deeply grateful to be a part of a community that not only imagines a more whole and loving world, but also actively works to create that world. A community built on love, and yes, hope, making the seemingly impossible, possible.
For this I am grateful, and I give thanks.
Mary
