Complicated Hope

Catchy slogans, pithy sayings, and slick ads. Our daily life is drowning in marketing campaigns. They draw us in. They resonate with us because they appeal to what we believe, or what we want to believe, is true.

Church-goers are no different. We love a good sermon series with three-point messages and 20 minutes of well-laid arguments, a nice mantra to repeat and a challenge at the end we can ponder for the week.

We Are All In This Together

During quarantine, this slogan began to appear on billboards and posters and church signs. It seemed so true at first glance.

It felt good to know that other people were stuck at home and ready to get out of their house as well. Yet, as the days past, I began to realize that the illusion of “together” was important because of how separated we had become during forced isolation.

We were not “socially distanced”, we were “physically distanced” and our hearts and souls were missing other people.

Our time at home was quiet and orderly and though there were times I felt I would scream from lack of new human interaction, the other two people in my house were just fine with their forced incubation. We had very different responses within our own walls.

If every person in every household had a different response, how much more so, every house in every neighborhood? Every neighborhood in every city? Every city? Every State? Every Nation?

Our quiet, comfortable existence was in no way the same experience for everyone.

In drastic contrast were the houses of friends and family. Two full-time work-at-home parents with two young children trying to do schoolwork. My older mom who was homebound. My best friends who were trying to teach on-line and still teach their own children. My dad who was battling health issues and was hospitalized twice during the quarantine. Neighbors who were moving. Students trying to find post-graduation jobs. Every household, a different challenge.

The discrepancies became magnified as single parents tried to educate children while still working essential jobs. Families with sick members tried to isolate them in their home. Multi-generational families were struggling to keep grandparents well while their children had a place to play.

Those are just the basic dynamics – throw in the economic issues. Paying bills. Getting groceries. Seeing a doctor. Navigating technology to do banking and Telehealth. Social issues – we can’t even scratch the surface of the variety of ways in which those differences have forced us apart.

No, we aren’t in this together. Our experiences are unique and vastly different. We are millions of households afloat on a tumultuous sea of information and misinformation and data points and technology; frustration and fear fuel our days, while we are all trying not to sink and at the same time we find ourselves drifting further away from each other.

“Together” is a needed illusion to combat anxiety.

Anxiety, defined by Webster’s Dictionary, is an “uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill”

That is such a perfect definition of how we have all been living! With an uneasiness – being shut in homes, during school and work and shopping differently; a nervousness – have you seen the fear in people’s eyes when they encounter someone they don’t know?; impending or anticipated ill – well, that’s self-explanatory.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;  and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Phillipians 4:6-7

“Together” becomes our goal. To do life with each other – face to face as we can. To connect our boats and let them become life rafts.

Look our for your elderly neighbors and find those single parents who need help. Be a Neighbor.

Together is where we will find Peace. When we gather together, God is with us and where He is, there is Peace.

Love Always,

Miss Kim