What is Hope?

Well, it’s not present-day reality. It is the very essence of what may be, what we hold in faith as a belief, in our heart and mind. It is what we seek to come, not as a part of a capitalistic dream of fortunes and materialism, but from our own dialogue with God, where our path may be found: where we can flourish.

Note, it is personal. Watch for those who dictate what your own hope might be.

Jesus speaks, in Luke 21: 25-36, of returning in a cloud and in great splendour. That’s not online, nor with a glamorous entourage; so, don’t try to describe it – it’s spiritual. So, with Advent starting for this year, that time where we look for hope in all that we see, feel and experience, what shall we do?

Present Day

Currently, we are hearing about a £22bn black hole in the UK finances and expectation of hard graft until the economic climate changes. In the US, they are expecting a huge pivot towards ‘zero inflation, tax cuts, and the return of America to becoming great once again‘. Those fortunate enough, financially, may find the possibility of fewer job opportunities and/or higher tariffs on imported goods, lead to hope; however, for many, it can look bleak.

It is in winter, after that period last month in Western Europe, where we experienced ‘anti-cyclonic gloop or gloom‘, the slow circulation of grey cloud obscuring the sun for weeks on end, where we might see such a visual metaphor for how some may be feeling. We, too, can get caught into this vortex of gloom, seemingly not able to escape its entangling grasp. Drawn in ever deeper, we then struggle more and more to see hope.

What we can do is to confront the signs that we see. When we spiral downwards, we can ask:

• what actual evidence do we have for such situations, are they somewhat biased predictions?
• are these thoughts that we have had previously, which are re-merging?, and can we acknowledge that they will pass.

We can confront the despair, and find respair¹, the opposite.

When Jesus speaks of warning signs with the sun, moon and stars, with surging seas, and planets shaken, recall the context and understanding then of the philosophers. They misunderstood the concept of planetary motion, they related the sea to the chaos depicted in Genesis, and tectonic plate activity were considered great portents of evil. So, don’t look for replication of these signs but look around.

Confront what we can see, and :

• offer comfort to those suffering from financial/political turmoil;
• help those living in devastation; and
• walk alongside those struggling physically and mentally.

Can we find hope amidst the carnage and destruction we see, feel and experience in our world?

For those who are struggling mentally, those that catastrophise their experiences – something I often do – may I ask you to listen? There is someone for me who is online, who is ready to listen to me, allowing me to hear my own thoughts, as I ‘verbalise them’ on the screen. All it can take is to listen, to help them to change perspective, and see those first few shards of light – what we know of hope – breaking through the gloom.

For those despairing of 4 years of emotional anguish, or employment retribution, or removal from the country, we don’t need to give them immediate physical signs of hope, but being there for them, to show that they are not alone, that we walk alongside them, even if we don’t fully understand all that they are going through, this may be sufficiently tangible to help. That’s respair.

Let hope be seen, felt and experienced

Advent does lead to Christmas, but removing the wrapping paper, the conflated nativity story, what we have is an acknowledgement of the reality of our current world, and that Jesus has shown that we can find hope within every one of us. In the birth of a helpless baby, from the pregnancy of a mere teenager, there is hope. Can we see that, without the glitz of money, presents and tinsel, we may also find hope for ourselves and others at this time?

1. As a noun, respair means “the return of hope after a period of despair.” , https://waywordradio.org/respair-return-to-hope/, accessed 14 Nov 24 ↩︎