Daily Archives: November 27, 2020

Hope and a Comment

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Earlier today I posted “Choosing Hope“.  From time to time folks post comments – and I do read them all but have learned long ago there is not time to respond to the comments on a regular basis. Today someone posted a comment that I thought was such an awesome message… “you know what,” I thought to myself, “I am going to make a post of it.” So from my good friend, Jim Rossman:

A liminal 9 months for sure! But, we live in hope. My prediction is that we will limp into a new normal, dragging many deniers with us, exactly on May 1, 2021. (I don’t have to be right — just confident.)

Between now and then, I will use whatever platform is available to me, as we count down the days and weeks to that benchmark, to encourage:

  • hopeful preparation during Advent
  • celebration of the Lord’s birth (our most inspiring symbol of HOPE)
  • embrace the days of Lent as opportunity to open our hearts to God and make room for inspiration on the countless ways we can help our “fellow runners” limp to the finish line
  • acceptance of our ultimate HOPE in the Resurrection of the Lord, and
  • the final 26 day countdown to May 1 when an outpouring of Gratitude signals another “new beginning” —- where we come together as a Parish, a Church, a community and a nation with determination to recognize the unfair distribution of the suffering of this pandemic and to repair the fabric of our connectedness.

I can’t imagine just hunkering down in despair and taking a beating for 5 more months. Time to begin the countdown and the ground building for a better world post May 1.

[Wow, now that is a clarion call to all people of faith!]

Choosing Hope

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Liminality is one of those “$20 words” having to do with being in being an intermediate state, phase, or condition – in other words, betwixt-and-between. The year 2020 is certainly a liminal year living between the pandemic’s start and the all too uncertain end. And such times are replete with stories. There are stories that affect us all; there are one that are personal – but there are always stories.

With winter’s approach and these hard economic times, there will soon be a story in the paper about a family huddled around the gas kitchen stove on a winter’s eve because the electricity bill is unpaid, and power is cut off. Somewhere there is a family huddled in the ER waiting room; their oldest child in an automobile accident, the surgeons coming to say, “We’re doing all we can.” Maybe it’s a loved one in the covid ICU. These are the moments you wish the world would end, at least the world as you now know it.

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