Dave Brisbin 7.5.20
My wife tells me we need to talk about hope on Sunday. It’s been so heavy lately, so much to process, so much disturbance, where do we look for hope? That’s the key isn’t it? To continue to find hope, to continue to trust that all will be well in any circumstance. I hear radio hosts glibly throwing around words like endurance, resilience, caring, mindfulness, but it feels true and insulting at the same time. Platitudes. Where can we find a way to hope that still acknowledges the reality of whatever pain we feel?
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I’ve been fascinated by the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto during WWII since the moment I first read their story. Walled off in a section of the city, over nine to a room on average, fed only 184 calories a day, with no medical services and brutal treatment from Nazi guards, they found a way to survive so successfully that eventually they had to be deported to death camps as the final solution. They smuggled food and other supplies, maintained underground hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages, libraries, synagogues, school, even a symphony orchestra. Not all, but enough of them found the hope to continue that can inspire us today to do what they did: to creatively restore what was lost, to find beauty in the rubble, and especially to find spiritual connection—solidly, concretely, in each other. Where are we to find the hope we seek in our difficulties? We can say in God, of course, but right here and now, we are God’s gift of himself to us in each other. If we can’t find God in each other, we won’t find him anywhere else…or the hope we need to continue.
