Walking with Hope

Hope for me can be a dangerous fixation, taking it next level, being a wild departure from truth. This state, necessary for elevating out of despair is necessary. But like most good things, I cling to it, glossing over facts, operating more like denial. Hope is the glimmer of light in darkness, illuminating your stark reality. That’s it’s role, and for it to be useful, you must take action; not this lying in bed marinating in it.

Today, I have a more realistic relationship with hope. It took years of suffering, revealing my wretched insecurity clinging to ideas rather than God. I understand God is the only true source of hope. Recently, I took to the back-alleys of the Bronx with friends. We were armed with sandwiches and water, clothing and prayer. My friend Marty leading the charge insisting on three things, connection, humility, and kindness. We approached the street homeless, most of whom were hopelessly delirious from their drug use. We put our arms around them, handed them provisions, and they joined us in prayer. Never in my life had I seen such depravity. People dressed in rags, lying on a sidewalk in utter ruin: needles dancing under our feet.

My heart, bleeding for their pain, walked planting seeds of hope. If I am to be honest, all I felt was anger. Anger at living in a country filled with abundance, and this is the result. They exist in shame believing their illicit drug use makes them unacceptable to God. What I knew for certain is God walked with us, using His love, begging them out of destruction.

My anger was directed at the drug dealers, spreading their poison, feeling like demons. I wanted to storm the office of the mayor and demand better. I wanted to knock on my neighbors door, a salesman of death, dealing to the vulnerable and fling my contempt. As with anything, I laid my feelings at God’s feet asking, “What do I do?” I had visions of police and arrests, removing them from my sight. In stillness I heard, “Love your neighbor as yourself!”

Because for all my conviction, bordering on self-righteousness, hate is how you enlarge a problem. Removing one man will ensure another will step in to fill his shoes. Spreading love, using God’s nudges as an act of conversion, shining a mirror absent judgement is the only way. Unsure what loving my criminal neighbor looks like, asking for God’s direction, resting on kindness certain I will find Happy in my Monday and hoping you will too!

Blessings,

Susan T.