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“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope,” Bernard Williams.
Recently we celebrated our daughter’s birthday. She was born before the era of ultrasound so, Jean and I could only long and hope. Yes, having already had two sons, my coming from a family of six male siblings, and my father’s family of eight siblings with only one daughter, we felt that genetically the odds for a girl were low. But, we hoped. What joy when the call went out, “It’s a girl.”
Hope is an integral part of life.
We live with hopes.
Today we hope for the end of Covid and all its variants. We hope, with the assistance of our governing bodies, to contain climate change to manageable limits. We hope for equality and justice for the millions living in countries with so much poverty and injustice. We hope to be healthy, for our families to be healthy, and to live out strong fulfilling lives.
But what does hope mean for the people of Merritt, Abbotsford, and Lytton, British Columbia? To the people of Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois who have lost their homes, livelihoods, friends, or family? To someone who has just lost a friend, a spouse, or other family members to Covid or another illness? To those who have lost hope.
Alexander Pope, the British poet of the seventeenth century said, “Hope springs eternal.” It seems that in the darkest moment of our lives hope can appear – fragile but promising. This hope may come in the presence of a person, in the unsolicited help of a neighbour, through the loving affection of a son or daughter. What a delight to read about a group who prepared cleanup kits for those whose homes had been flooded in B.C. To hear of the man who pulled his barbeque fifty miles to prepare meals for those left homeless in Kentucky by the tornado – just small glimmers of hope.
Jesus was birthed into a world of turmoil.
For centuries the Jewish people lived in the hope of God’s promised descendent of their famous king David arriving to free them from the captivity and turmoil of foreign domination. But when Jesus arrived the majority didn’t recognize his leadership; he didn’t fulfill their demands to complete history on their terms. Instead, he came practicing and mentoring a different kind of hope – a lifestyle displacing enmity for love, turning sadness, whether caused by deformity, disease, or exclusion, into joy. Dead were raised, lost found, and the marginalized or excluded made to feel accepted. New hope appeared.
For years I wanted to publish a book of stories about finding hope in dark moments. Covid confinement provided time to revisit that wish. But venturing into publishing a book holds many challenges, many unknowns, and requires skills needed that I didn’t have.
Fortunately for me, the daughter we had hoped for, and a granddaughter provided the skills to produce an outstanding cover, to assist in the formatting, and encouragement in marketing. That insurmountable goal, with their assistance, came to completion.
The short story, Three Wishes in my recently published book, Fire and Iron, tells of two women who share disappointments in their marriages. But, Ruth, the third woman present, tells of being rescued from shame by the self-sacrificing kindness of a young man. Ruth’s story provided insights to hope for her two embittered friends. Click here to get the whole story.
Sometimes darkness appears endless, life’s further journey impossible, but one person, one act of kindness, one idea can provide the sunrise of hope. Hope is the muscle to move forward.
