When you only see despair

The problems often seem too big.

The pain can be too intense, squeezing your chest so tight you fear your heart may burst.

You can’t see a way forward, and you don’t know how things can be fixed.

How can there be any hope at all?

I’ve struggled with depression my entire life, riding the same waves we all do of the peaks and valleys of life, but perhaps with a bit more consistent melancholy.

I feel and empathize deeply, so in a world that always has troubles, the seemingly inevitable suffering of some group of people somewhere weighs at the back of my mind.

When personal pain or loss happens, it takes precedence and adds an extra burden that sometimes feels like it will never lift.

I confess I’m wrestling with part of my faith at the moment, struggling to believe that God will eventually make all things right as the Christian faith teaches.

The writers of the various portions of the New Testament, without fail, expected Christ to immanently return within a matter of a handful of years – and he didn’t.

And here we are 2,000 years later, having been consistently told by Christians throughout that entire time that Christ would be back soon – but he hasn’t.

For students of history, though technology advances, the stubborn repetition of the same societal mistakes and seeming human inability to learn from the past is excruciating – we always think we’re different than those who came before, but we aren’t.

It’s a day after Independence Day in America, where so many of us live in a make-believe world that’s born out of self-denial, intense tribalism, ignorance, and misinformation.

The American government is likely to last in some form for a long time, but the republic is devolving into authoritarianism because the citizens – on the whole – lack the desire and drive to be informed and engaged, so as has happened throughout history, they turn to demagogues as would-be saviors.

And as so often happens, those demagogues take advantage of the situation to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Wars are becoming more frequent, as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine sees no end in sight and tensions in the Middle East consistently threaten a larger conflict.

Globally, regardless of its cause, the climate is changing, the earth becoming warmer as the Arctic melts, ocean levels rise threatening coastal cities, and hurricanes become stronger and more frequent.  Food sources will become more threatened making famine and mass starvation more likely.

And all the while most of us in America have our heads stuck in the sand, oblivious to the problems around us at best or uncaring at worst.

For those of us struggling with personal loss in the midst of all this, life is that much harder. 

Life is bittersweet – there is beauty in our relationships and children and in the world around us, but change is constant: loss is part of life, as we all eventually die; our children grow; the world and our communities change, not always for the better.

The mountain of despair seems insurmountable.  Is there any hope at all?

As I’ve written quite a few times, our reality is ultimately determined by the things we focus on – if we harp on the negative, then that is all we will see.

Conversely, we can’t only focus on rainbows and kittens, because then we become those blissfully ignorant saps that are taken advantage of by others and contribute to the status quo not improving.

We have to do our best to balance our focus, to not turn away from the difficult realities that so often face us while not forgetting that there is genuine beauty in the world.

And the reality of our broad situation as humanity is this: our hope isn’t placed in one nation or one form of government, but it has to be placed in caring for each other regardless of who we are or where we come from.  We must stop viewing each other in groups, as “us” and “them,” and we must move toward accepting that we are all in this together.

For a longer-term hope for our species, we will have to adapt to whatever changes come our way, and we will have to continue to become more mindful of our impact on the earth lest we inadvertently kill our home and therefore ourselves. 

As for any ultimate hope beyond the material world, mine continues to be in Christ alone.  As much as many Christians will disagree, the Bible is not perfect, and the more you learn about it, the more you’re able to accept it for the gift it is instead of worship it as if it were divine itself.  My hope is not in it, valuable as it is.

But there’s something about Jesus – why a nobody who shows up in a highly-marginalized people dominated by a vast imperial machine was able to make the kind of impact he did defies explanation unless there was something to his claims and power to heal spread by those who followed him.

I can’t tell you when he will return, or what that will look like when he does.  But I do know his followers need to stop abdicating the work of repairing the world because “he’ll be back soon” and become more involved doing the work themselves.  We’ve pushed off a large measure of responsibility for 2,000 years and counting, so it’s far past time we became fully engaged.

As for you and me, we can’t by ourselves change the world; we can only do what we can where we are.  Care for the people in your orbit, whomever they are and regardless of where they come from.  Enjoy the beauty around you, the relationships you have for the time you have on this earth.  Help your community.  Make a difference where you find yourself.

By ourselves, we are small, and there’s only so much we can do.  But by building what we can where we are, we begin to influence those around us, and those effects ripple outward wider than we’re likely to ever know.