What Gives Me Hope?

What Gives Me Hope?

I am struggling with a lot of fear and anxiety these days, and I observe how these deplete my energy and distract me from my faith and my ability to take positive action.  I get caught up in “what ifs?” and there are no assurances that they won’t happen.

What if I don’t have insurance, get sick, unable to work and homeless, and die? What if my country is taken over by billionaires and destroyed? What if the end of the ACA means many people with preexisting conditions die? What if the environment is destroyed by fracking, drilling, pollution, global warming, and “natural disasters”? What if more species become extinct because there is no longer any protection for them or for their habitat? What if freedoms of speech, assembly, the press are curtailed? What if abortion is once again criminalized? What if marriage equality is overturned?

I’m experiencing, not quite flashbacks, maybe “flashbits,”to times when my physical body, my wants and “won’ts” were regularly violated, my needs neglected, without anyone to turn to for assistance. I felt helpless, alone, and overwhelmed. I developed coping strategies (dissociation, escapist reading, numbing with food, etc.). And I SURVIVED. I’ve spent many years seeking healing from abuse, and as I healed, I often heard negative “voices” challenging my right to health, happiness, joy, connection. These were angry, abusive voices, and I’m hearing echoes every day that are frighteningly familiar. Only this time, it is my country, my neighbors, God’s creation, our freedom and many other rights, that are being violated. Daily we are seeing freedoms threatened, lies promulgated as truth (“alternative facts”), distortions of “law and order” in the service of control, most of the progress of the past 50+ years (most of my lifetime) being reversed or under threat of being overturned. And the temptation is to seek comfort in ways that got me through abuse and through the challenges of healing. But those coping strategies are no longer appropriate or effective. So what do I do?

When I focus on what-ifs, I can become mired in despair and apathy—I have learned that when that happens, I need to turn my attention away from believing that I KNOW what will happen. I need to keep returning to this moment, this is where I find my strength. As a person of faith, I turn to God with my prayers for courage and strength. And lately, I’m hearing “VOICES” every day that remind me that there is power in our commitments to our values, our freedom. Here are a few:

·         The Women’s Marches

·         Rev. William Barber https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.3i41jbl4q

·         Peter Leyden https://shift.newco.co/https-medium-com-peteleyden-why-trumps-inauguration-is-not-the-beginning-of-an-era-but-the-end-72a86833f0a3#.rtyb0ne0l

·         Parker Palmer http://www.onbeing.org/blog/parker-palmer-the-soul-of-a-patriot/9146

·         Marv Knox https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/19893-editorial-practicing-faith-in-the-age-of-trump

·         “Lead on, o king eternal” https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/glad/lead-on-o-king-eternal-94

·         Pantsuit Nation

·         Rebecca Solnit, "Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginalized. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope." (Hope in the Dark: Untold Stories and Wild Possibilities)

I’m not physically able to march at this point in my life, but I can write and I can listen and I can share what gives me hope.  What gives you hope?