2022-11-01 A Meditation on Hope Amidst Despair

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28 ESV)

Some of the richest spiritual lairs occur close by discouragement and things depressive. When we get thus distracted, we can fill our days with things that compete and do battle with the pensive cap, the thinking spirituality, the capable prayer life. Not being too pensive, we return in true form to that Calling and that merged life, different caps we might wear being cause for holy stretching and holy thought. It is holy to think of ways in which—yes, if we speak of depressive spirits, then nothing wrong with speaking of self-encouragement and encouraging spirits—to think of ways in which we are chaperoned through scary thoughts, and indebted in life-affirming ways to others. Such is a gift to us from the day of our creation and our formation in the womb of life: character, purpose, hope, all things that we do more than lean on: that form our very reason for being, our patience through the slog, our resolve, and our careful walking stick.

So we celebrate, having no time nor season for halfway thoughts or partial faith. We are all in, not cautious in our testimony or juggling the unbelief with the belief. Sometimes we need to say, wow, evil thoughts can either be allowed to foment and form, or can be dispelled with a hearty gratitude for the simpler things, a garden to walk through metaphorically and even literally, a positivity, a corner turned from shadowy and harping regrets. Let us today be those properly enlisted and as it were floating on air, were we not capable and glad to give ample, reasonable, loving explanation as to just how we so float. For, those who know another side of us, the saddened or regretful soul, are themselves either evangelized or cynical: we brush off all accusation as being a failure for one to be like Jesus to another. That is, friendship is always all-in, always Christ-like, always oblivious to the flaws of others (for those are flaws in our own imaginative capacity) and lifting of droopy hands, startling energies unto the feet and limbs, cause for dwelling in our peace zone: for so many, that zone being one of full-on employment and service.

We wear different caps, and take a breather to remember: this is my time well spent; I have so little by way of production to boast of, but am encouraged by the testimony of the saints: that they, too, are bleary-eyed and just managing to scrape by sometimes. They, too, batten down the hatches in the church service, as itself a victory and an excellent forward service and position.

So we were lost for a moment, and then called home. This homecoming betters any manifest future reunion, with the notion of union Now. We have no fear to indulge things that make us happy, only we are learning to hand all things over to God. But we escape, and that narrowly, from past regrets, from a sense (in down moments we are certain we plotted the entire failure) of being permanently “out” when it comes to family or friends we’ve let down.

They let us live. They pass us on the streets with a gesture or the occasional “Hello”. This is why we embrace the hardship, the existential “What if?” of it all being empty and devoid of meaning. How easily we forget the brighter, warmer climes. How easily we neglect to keep first and foremost that one, perhaps, or that duo or more, of souls knit to ours by time and proximity and mutual upbuilding, even if long on the absent front. So we are dealt a cautious and protected foray into those depressive spirits, spirits that simply forget the gospel is not parceled out and merged part in, part out, with secular despondency. The Gospel is for us in total defeat, yet total victory. We love those the Lord has put in our life, and in our recollections. We are negotiating shoals of “should have”, “would have”, “must have” senses of what goes on, when in fact we are those liberated by a—yes, at times seemingly flawed—book that safeguards the single estate as much as the married estate, the lone explorer as much as the one with an audience, the clarion call to discover and recover and unburden deeper facts and certitudes called Sin, that were hidden from view until some gesture of faith, some new language, some perilous journey ending in victory, does show the stress lines and the ways we are existential and affirming with each other.