Hope

 

It is a difficult time for so many of us now with the chaos being unleashed in the country.  While we do not know what kind of resistance will emerge, what will be effective, what will be torn apart, some are already suffering.  Children are being separated from parents, thousands around the world will not receive life-saving medicines, many fear retribution, scapegoating, shaming. Millions worry about their jobs, research they have been developing over many years coming to a halt, their children’s education. I have lost funding at work and work has become harder as we censor our languages. 

Beneath all of this, day to day life unfolds as if on a parallel universe. I have the same small and larger worries and irritations. Joy still comes unexpectedly.  I am moved by something precious, beautiful, invigorating.  My heart trembles in the same ways to music, loving, glimpses of the divine.  There is still the awe of life itself. In this ordinariness, I find enduring qualities of truth, hope, and community.

In the midst of the chaos, life unfolding in the same enduring ways.

I happen to be reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison letters during this rising chaos.  Bonhoeffer, a Luther minister who was part of the Nazi resistance, was imprisoned and eventually executed for his actions.  In the early months of his imprisonment, his letters to his family and friends spoke of many ordinary things and the rhythm of his days in prison.  There are the books he is reading, the hour of fresh air, the craving for tobacco.  We learn about his lumbago and colds but also his hope that they will soon be together again perhaps after the summer garden has been harvested, or maybe the winter apples.  He requests clothes, earplugs, writing paper, and tobacco.  His elderly parents remain hopeful for his release, recount birthdays, anniversaries, and the wedding that he missed.  They tell him about the fragrance of the fall rain and how they had to build the bomb shelter in the basement.  They grow weary of his imprisonment as the months go on – they can hardly believe two, four, six, eight months have passed.   

It is extraordinary to see all the hope in these letters and to find hope now amidst our own chaotic and troubling times.  In the midst of this chaos, the carrying on with the ordinariness of life becomes a holy act of defiance.  The simple gathering of apples from the garden to make a cake to bring to the imprisoned son an act of worship and hope.