A time to hope

At midnight on Sunday 31^st of December 2023, country by country, time zone after time zone will tick into January 1^st 2024. Bells will ring out and fireworks light up the dark as people hug and a hope stirs in them. To borrow a line from a Johnny Mathis Christmas song, maybe “hate will turn to love, war to peace and everyone to everyone’s neighbour, and misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten forever.”

Hope is a frequently used word: “I hope the weather improves”.  “I hope the anxiety I’m feeling goes away.“  “I hope the floodwaters recede soon.”   I hope the baby sleeps till at least 6 o’clock.”  “ I hope the war between Russia and Ukraine will come to an end very soon.”  “I hope we are spared bushfires this year.”

Hope isn’t like closing your eyes and making a wish as you blow out the candles on your birthday cake. It’s not the wishful thinking that accompanies a belief that no matter how bad things are everything will turn out OK eventually. Right now the news bulletins are all the evidence we need of the tremendous suffering and widespread destruction in so many parts of the world. There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about it.

Hope is a God-given spark lying deep in our soul, along with that pulse of truth, an inner knowing that ‘all will be well, and all manner of things will be well’. It gives us the strength to stay in the moment when an accident, a betrayal or an epidemic can tear us from ordinary life or relationships, or shake the hope we had taken for granted.

We learn to live with hope when we experience adversity and discomfort in all their manifestations. The writer Rebecca Solnit says that hope means living with the complexities and uncertainties that will always be there in one shape or another- with openings. Richard Rohr might be referring to these openings when he says that “hope keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves.”

It reminds me of a story by Fr Anthony de Mello. In my version a woman dreamt she walked into a brand new shop in the heart of Melbourne Central and to her surprise, found God behind the counter. “What do you sell here?” she asked. “Everything your heart desires,” said God. Hardly daring to believe what she was hearing, the woman decided to ask for the best things that a human being could wish for. “For myself I want peace of mind, happiness, wisdom and freedom from fear, and I want my children and my grandchildren to be spared anything that may harm them.” God smiled. “I think you’ve got me wrong my dear. We don’t sell fruits here. Only seeds.”

As 2024 begins my hope is that the seeds of peace, harmony and equality planted by people the world over will flourish in the Light that gives them life.

 Judith    judith@judithscully.com.au