Strong Opinions, Tightly Held vol 8

Hope is not an emotion; it is a way of thinking or a cognitive process. - Brene Brown

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could Bash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

- Emily Dickinson

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope in recent weeks.

We’ve emerged into the Paschal season, shaking off the dim, mournful fasting days of Lent to bask in the Resurrection. For most of us in the Northern hemisphere, the last frosty days of winter have fallen away and spring has truly sprung (or so my allergies tell me).

A few weeks ago I did an interview with Ann Marie, the founder of St. Phoebe’s Center for the Deaconess, and she said something that has stuck with me. When asked about how she started this work, Ann Marie said that she started her advocacy with the expectation that she would NOT see deaconesses in her lifetime. And she said it with a smile, and hope, and I felt a weight roll off my shoulders, and hope swell in my chest.

I did something big (for me) this week - I decided to get involved in my community, and I went to a meeting, and now I am on the board of a political party’s organization in my county (look WE ALL KNOW WHAT PARTY but there are some people in my life who might be reading this that I would LIKE to allow some plausible deniability). I decided to get involved in this way, not because I have any particular loyalty to party politics, or even to America as a nation-state - but because I want to be a part of my community, to know its people and its needs, and to advocate for policies and people who will pursue the good for my neighbors and my community.

I made a friend! I talked to strangers! It was good! And looking around at a group of people I probably would not have met anywhere else in my life, I realized how much hope our gathering represented.

I’m not sure many people would have said that they were there because of hope. Probably most would have talked about fear, or frustration, or compassion - but to do anything - to go to a meeting, to volunteer your time, to learn about an issue or navigate a new process - we must have hope. You must believe, somewhere in your soul, that better is possible, that better is desirable, that we can better, and others can do better, and things can change.

Maybe the hard part of hope is what Ann Marie nailed so immediately - we probably won’t see the fruits of our labor in our lifetime.

Sure - we’ll see some! We’ll see our investments in our community pay us back in relationships and mutual flourishing; we’ll see laws change and systems morph; we’ll see kids grow up and lives saved - but the real results of a million tiny changes take a long time to unfold. We have to accept that - we have to have faith in God and each other that the work we begin will continue long after we are gone, and keep doing the things, every single day.

Hope - like love - isn’t a feeling that comes and goes. It’s the actions we take, the choices we make, the communities we join, the causes we come alongside. Hope and love are things we feel, but more than that, they are things we create; actions we take; choices we make. We decide to hope and so we invest in our community instead of hoarding our time and resources. We decide to love and so we learn about the challenges faced by our loved ones and neighbors. We make a choice to choose hope and fight for the immigrant, the marginalized, the ignored. We make a choice to love and opt to feed the poor rather than pad our own coffers.

Sure, sometimes love and hope are easier than others. Right now they can both feel far out of reach, wherever you find yourself on the spectrum or religious or political belief. But hope and love are the only things worth fighting for, the only safe places to launch our dissent and resistance from. Hope and love are what we are moving towards when we choose mercy over fear; justice over brute strength.

So choose something to nurture hope and faith in your life, in your spirit this week. After all - as we heard only a little over a week ago -

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

- St. John Crysostom, Easter Homily

Notes

• I was going to recommend some things but I just got called into a meeting starting in a half an hour and I am not Teams ready lol!!!! (EVERYTHING IS FINE I am helping with interviews to fill a position.)

• ORTHODOX FEMINIST BOOK CLUB - Let’s read a book together! Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz MAY not seem like a natural first pick for a book club but WHAT THE HECK I’m reading it and multiple other readers have mentioned wanting to read it, so LET’S READ IT TOGETHER. More to come in the chat and on the Discord.

• May Virtual Event!!! Monday May 12th at 7pm Eastern! Click here to register.

• Come check out the Discord! We’re just getting going, I have no idea how to do this but click here to join.