Anne Frank, Paul and Hope

“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

The irony of these words from Anne Frank hits me like a punch to the gut. Despite everything she experiences as a Jew hiding from the Nazis, fearing that her life could be taken from her at any moment, she believes that people are “truly good at heart.” And yet, her life soon comes to an end at the hands of those anyone would have trouble describing as “truly good at heart.” Even Anne herself acknowledges that the evidence doesn’t seem to support her thesis.

To be honest, I have trouble agreeing with her. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by our Lutheran theology that seemed so negative, emphasizing how “we are by nature sinful and unclean.” I didn’t want to believe it. Now that I’m older, there’s no denying it. Anyone who doesn’t see it isn’t paying attention. It’s been hard to face that reality with much enthusiasm for the future.

Depression keeps leaving messages on my phone these days. Although I haven't replied to any of them, I do resonate with what they're saying to me. In my most despairing moments, I wonder if hope is just something for us to cling to when things are desperate. It becomes our only alternative to throwing in the towel. That’s to say that we hope because we can’t bear to face the alternative. It’s a convenient illusion to keep us going, despite all evidence that people are basically f***ed up, they are incapable of changing, and life is pointless.

Yes, I know that’s a cynical outlook on life. And yet, is it untrue? I can only visit these thoughts from time-to-time. I don’t dare live there. But during these visitations, I wonder where the truth lies. When am I more out of touch with reality—when I feel like I’m drowning in despair, or when I’m wrapping myself in a protective blanket of hope?

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, he tells them they can boast in their sufferings, knowing that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…” Is this just crazy talk, or is Paul onto something?

If you cut to the chase with this line of reasoning, suffering leads to hope. That makes hope one of those defiant actions that’s born out of a negative place. Like courage, which is born out of fear. If you weren’t afraid of something, it would take no courage to face it. Or forgiveness, which is born out of resentment. If you didn’t truly resent another person, you would have no need to forgive. In the same way, hope is born out of suffering. Without suffering, there can be no reason to hope.

Not one of us escapes this life without suffering, so the struggle is real. We might just as easily give in to despair. We have every reason to. And yet, we still hope. It’s a defiant action – the way we fight back in the presence of suffering. Hope eats despair for breakfast.

Hope is not like wishful thinking. We don’t all live happily ever after. It may never be possible for you to have the life you’ve always longed for. The loved one who has left you grieving may never be coming back. The disease you’ve been diagnosed with may never be cured. The politician you detest may get elected. Injustice may rule the day. Cruelty may overshadow any evidence of kindness in the world around you. Humanity may seem hell-bent on destroying itself. Things don’t always go the way you want them to, and no amount of wishing can change that.

But here’s the truth I keep before me. No matter how bad things may get for me personally, or no matter how bad they may get for my community, my country, my world, I’m connected to something much bigger than the circumstances of my life—something much bigger than me. And in faith, I trust that that something bigger is a God who brings order out of chaos, a God who pulls all creation toward healing and wholeness, a God who loves us so much that nothing can ever separate us from that love, not even death itself. That’s the source of my hope. I can see no other.

So, here’s the thing about hope. I’ve noticed again and again that when things feel most desperate, that’s when hope appears. And so, I await its appearance, knowing that the more convinced I become that it will pass me by this time like a pizza delivered to someone else’s house, the more I begin to taste the mozzarella cheese in my mouth.

Something seriously wrong

I don’t know if any time is an easy time for a person who is clinically depressed. As one of those people who has bouts with depression, over the long-haul, I’m in and out. Not just one day depressed and the next not. It creeps up on me and engulfs my life for months at a time before gradually loosening its grip and releasing me. And for someone like me, this is a scary time.  

I am physically struggling with a condition that affects my stamina. It finally has a name, after many years of referring to it as my mystery disease. That name is fibromyalgia. Often, I find that my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak. It’s important that I function, because people depend upon me, and I manage to do that, but there are times when I worry that they need more than I have to give. And it takes everything I’ve got to keep moving. After I spend all my energy on my work as a pastor, my spare time is devoted to recuperating. As a result, my pastor life is the only life I have these days, and as much as I love my work, I need to have a life. My lack of a life is starting to feel oppressive to me.

Then I’ve got life-sucking stuff going on that any pastor of a mainline church can probably relate to in 2018. I am surrounded by people who are grieving loss. And I’m not just talking about the loved ones who grieve at the funerals I’m doing these days, which is far greater than I have ever experienced in my life. I’m talking about people who are grieving and don’t even realize it—grieving the loss of a way of life within an institution that, in the way they have always known it, is slipping through their fingers. I have faith that new life will arise from the corpse, but the actual dying part is brutal. It’s hard to stay afloat above the grief that is constantly sucking me under. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.

If I’m honest, I have to mention my getting-old struggles… something I don’t like to talk about it. As I approach the age my mother was when she died, I keep wondering how it’s all going to go down for me. Lately, I find myself waking up in the morning obsessed with some past wrong I have endured or inflicted upon others. Do I need to do an archeological dig of my life, knowing there are a lot of layers of sorrow and shame and anger I will be sure to uncover? Ugh. Part of me feels compelled to go there, and part of me wants to leave the dirt undisturbed and in place. It’s who I am, and I feel a need to be okay with that, if not for me, then for the people who relate to me. Am I the only older person who feels this way? I wonder if the joy-filled old people I spend time with are just putting on an act so that the rest of us can stand to be around them. (Come to think of it, that may be true for a lot of us, not just old people.)

The greatest joy in my life is my two grandsons, Nick and Justin. But even that joy is tinged with sorrow for me. When I watch the preschool children file past me in the hallways at church, it’s all I can do to keep from weeping. Students everywhere, including preschoolers, are spending time learning how to avoid being shot when an intruder with a gun comes into their school. The clock on climate change is ticking more rapidly every day, while those who could make a significant difference scoff at science. Fear-of the-other is used as a weapon to bolster the power of the already-powerful on a global scale. Ignorance, cruelty and immorality seem to be in fashion. It’s too much. And all I can think about are my two dear grandsons and all the other children who had the misfortune of being born into this screwed-up mess-of-a-world. 

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t been writing a lot lately. That’s because I have suspected that what I have to say right now, no one else wants to hear. If you’re still reading, you may agree. With the little I have shared with you, many of you will want to fix me and tell me that everything is going to be all right. Please don’t. I understand your need to do that, but it doesn’t help me to hear it. 

I will confess that I’ve always been a glass-half-empty kind of person. But lately the glass seems to be less than half-empty, and I can’t help but think that anyone who insists otherwise isn’t paying attention. 

If I couldn’t trust that God is loving and good, and somehow God is at work in the world, usually through us and sometimes despite us, I don’t know how I could get through these days. I suspect I’m not alone and I share this with you because, if you find yourself in a similar place, I want you to know that you’re not alone, either. There’s not something seriously wrong with you if you are disturbed by the fact that there’s something seriously wrong.