Sparking Hope

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Dear friends,

As I write this, the election in the U.S. is yet to happen. By the time you read it, the outcome will be known. For some this will bring hope and for others disappointment. As I rode my bike through the city recently, I thought about the vibrancy of the world, literally vibrating it seems sometimes, and how it seems we all carry varying states of hope or perhaps tip toward hopelessness at times. Some of us are wrapped up in the wars that affect family and friends. Some of us may hope the results of an election might bring change. Some feel that hope is a lost cause. I, personally, swing between the two like a clock pendulum, wishing to stay on the side of hope, inevitably some mechanism pulls me back. Perhaps it’s the desire not to be disappointed. I avoid the term pessimism and prefer a healthy dose of realism instead, refusing to be too wrapped up in outcomes I cannot change even as I invest time and energy in trying to do just that in seemingly small ways.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1261" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]Recently, I remembered where I’ve buried hope and that it is sometimes, thankfully, possible to dig it up again. Our partner, Berliner Missionswerk, invited me to join their volunteer program group during their seminar week to lead a workshop for the volunteers, some of who have extensive cross-cultural experience already, and others who are embracing their first month in a new context. Looking around the circle of young adults and listening to them each introduce themselves and name their home culture, I felt those perspectives infuse the room. They blended and danced around each other and showed some light into the muted evening tone. I imagined that light as hope in the midst of a very fractured, tenuous global structure. Someone said they thought the whole world had a problem with expressing emotions. It feels like the world has a problem with really seeing or hearing each other most of the time. Hope to me was spending some hours in a room and looking into the faces of the world telling their stories and being heard.

At one point, someone brought out a guitar as we waited for some technical issues to be sorted out. Another person found a drum and backed up the rhythm being picked out. Another backed it all up with Arabic beats played from their phone. A few others joined in singing, sometimes just lyrical nonsense about the day, sometimes a once popular song from the 90s, sometimes just humming. All these different elements, and these different backgrounds could and did compliment each other in harmony. It’s an image I soaked in from the background, the one I ended up taking with me from the evening. Harmony is possible out of differences.

Christmas is coming. That’s supposed to be a season of hope in the church. I find that hard to match sometimes with the world around. I find that especially hard the last couple of years when so many have died in the place where the church, along with others, claim their origins. Too much of the world stays silent on this. Hope could also be that voices carry and land like lightning, sparking some sort of shift in the global atmosphere. One can hope.

In the midst of all of that, our family sends you greetings from Berlin where we are preparing to welcome the holidays and enjoy the focus on Advent here in this culture. It’s a dark time of year this far north, a time that many struggle to cope with as we wait impatiently for more daylight, but there is enough spark to remind us that there is still reason to hope.

Alethia and Ryan

The Palestinian Refaat Alareer wrote the poem “If I Must Die” about hope. It is interwoven in the mural painted in solidarity with the Palestinians that stands in Belfast.

If I must die, 

you must live 

to tell my story 

to sell my things 

to buy a piece of cloth 

and some strings, 

(make it white with a long tail) 

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza 

while looking heaven in the eye 

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze— 

and bid no one farewell 

not even to his flesh 

not even to himself— 

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above 

and thinks for a moment an angel is there 

bringing back love 

If I must die 

let it bring hope 

let it be a tale