There is Always (Revised)

A few months ago, at a particularly difficult time, I posted the first version of the piece below... Frankly I'm not in a much better place at present, but given the reminder by Beverly Barbour at conference yesterday about both the certainty and the timeframe of the hope we profess, I have revised it and added a closing verse.

70 years of exile is not long in eternal terms, but for a 58 year old it is chastening. With that in mind the "transformation of the world" for which we work, may not be to our immediate benefit, and unlike Moses, or Martin Luther King Jnr., we may not even see the Promised Land that we ourselves will not enter. But that is why it is not just a matter of hope but also of ‬faith, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" ‭(Hebrews 11:1) and the steadfast love of God on which that hope depends. (Psalm 33: 18 & 22; 130: 7; 147:11).

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul."

Emily Dickinson

"I’m not an optimist. I’m a prisoner of hope."

Desmond Tutu

"So I’ve been hearing this phrase y’all got over here that I ain’t too crazy about. ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’ Y’all know that? I disagree, you know? Ted Lasso, Season 1 Episode 10 I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief.”

Ted Lasso Season 1 Episode 10

"Sometimes hope is all I have."

Beki Hemingway

Caged up and shackled

To an unfledged

Emaciated creature

Unable to take flight.

Hollowed out words

With no tune to give them life,

Endlessly burbling

With no full stop in sight.

Emotional fingernails

Broken and bleeding

From their very roots

Through clinging on.

Slope shouldered resignation

Or caterwauling despair,

Might seem less agonising

Than chronic hope deferred.

We may live and die in Babylon,

But another generation

Will sing in the streets

Of another, regenerated, city.

Selah

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