Without a glimpse of something beyond this, the lack of hope would be paralyzing.
It is seemingly impossible for me to observe the world and not see brokenness, disharmony, strife, evil… The obvious ones on which everyone agrees: famine, harm of children, brutal ethnic cleansings and so on. The less obvious (at times): materialism, poor stewardship of nature and resources, rich taking advantage of the poor, children in disjointed homes, kids who can’t read, very lonely people, and anything else one could add to the list.
Brokenness without a solution would leave us without hope. In our best efforts we have sought solutions and put our hope in any number of things:
~ Political leaders
~ Our own abilities to make a difference and serve others
~ Success
~ Educational reform, Health Care Reform, Reform of any kind
~ Relationships that are “better” than ones we knew previously
~ Good practices and life strategies
~ A god of some kind
People have been touting new avenues for hope for a very long time. It makes me wonder why things don’t ever seem to be getting better. In viewing our human attempts to restore all of these broken things, I find myself in a place of greater hopelessness than ever before. Rich people blame the poor for ruining the fabric of society, and the poor blame the rich for hoarding the wealth. It seems as though all of our volunteering, our policies, our leaders, and our success still finds much of its end in broken, failing results.
This idealist whose heart breaks when honestly faced with her own screw-ups and failings, whose heart breaks when she hears about children and mothers barely above water, and whose heart is often calloused to others’ suffering and wallows in guilt when faced with this reality. This idealist has hope that she's not the end of the story. Hope that none of us are the end of the story.
Not bumper sticker hope. Not TV evangelist hope. Not Glenn Beck or Obama hope. Not a neat and tidy hope. Not churchy, do-gooder kind of hope.
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