WORD OF THE WEEK
I AM noticing that we seem to be on a global seesaw. We feel high on hope as we hear news of humanity’s great ingenuity in tackling climate change issues, and then we hit depths of shock and despair as we suffer a severe heat event with wildfires. Hope soars and then hope plummets. To be alive, we need hope.
This year cycling took me from London to Bristol and then over the Mendip hills onto the south coast for our final destination of Exeter.
Cycling over the Mendips we experienced torrential rain. Rain sometimes impossible to cycle in, we gingerly went through floods and snaked our way down to Wells, lost in a curtain of cloud and rain.
The sun returned and we felt the relief of drying clothes. However, we were soon cast into another deluge of rain. In those moments you feel shock and sometimes despair when there is no shelter and you are wet through.
Hope seesaws as the sun comes out and the storm returns. Somehow, we keep hope that this is a great way to spend our holiday.
We may find it difficult to hope in the future in the face of great uncertainty, not just in the climate, though our life depends on it, but in the face of viruses and war in times of great global interdependence.
We may wonder how to manage our emotions when we are tossed from hope to despair repeatedly.
I feel right in the midst of that struggle with many. My experience is that hope keeps us alive in all sorts of circumstances.
It is the willingness and the courage to believe in the future, though it is not clear what that is to be.
It draws us into new ways of thinking and being, it helps us to survive.
I’m reminded of the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, whose words I keep close – ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’
It is not that all things will be right for us, but that we can trust that somehow we are held in a love we call God, that is within and beyond ourselves.
And, on that we can depend.