Monday, January 6, 2025
Happy Monday and Happy New Year, my friends! I haven’t heard one way or another, but I wonder if less people made new year resolutions this year. Resolutions are hopeful intentions. We are stating some goal or action which we hope to take in the coming year. As 2024 came to an end on New Year’s Eve, one of my friends asked the question: “What was the best part of 2024 for you?” Silence filled the room. The small group of progressive activists and advocates, me included, struggled to find moments of joy that could rise to the level of “best” during what was for us a pretty terrible year. In time we realized that degrees had been earned, a book accepted for publication, personal goals conquered, and smaller, less obvious joy had occurred. None of us wanted entertain the associated question: What are you hopeful for in 2025?
Too many of us are feeling not just a lack of hope, but a paralyzing hopelessness. The theologian Karen Baker-Fletcher writes that “Being oppressed is not the same as being dead. Love, faith, and hope are also present…Hope is when you wake up in the morning, set both feet on the ground, stand up, and keep on keeping on.”[1] Recently, I’ve been trying to live into that kind of hope. Sure, it might not seem very hopeful to some people like when asked how you’re doing, you respond, “I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m still moving forward.” Nothing in that statement is hopeless. In fact, most of us know that we will get through because we’ve gotten through other challenges and because people like us have gotten through worse.
Friends, as we live into the early uncertain days of 2025, remember that waking up, getting out of bed, and showing up are all acts of hope. What other ways are you experiencing hope?
Let us pray: Dear God, we know that hope is practiced in the simple action of “keeping on keeping on.” Help us to recognize all the hope that surrounds us even in times when we are oppressed and marginalized. Set hope in our lives along with your grace. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
[1] Karen Baker-Fletcher, Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), p. 38.
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