Hope Arising

Reverend Janet Parsons

January 3, 2021

 

This has likely been the most anticipated, the most consequential New Year since the turn of the century 20 years ago now. This New Year, I found myself feeling as though it wasn’t enough to just watch the ball drop on TV, text ‘Happy New Year’ to the kids, and turn in. So when a friend proposed that we get up and go watch the sunrise on New Year’s morning, I surprised myself by saying ‘yes’.  As many of you know by now, I am something of a night owl.  But my friend offered to stop for coffee and donuts, and somehow this just suddenly felt like the right thing to do.

 

And it was.  It was a gorgeous morning, and the sun rose right between the twin lights on Thacher Island, creating a rosy, and then golden, path across the water to the rocks at our feet.  The Psalmist promises joy in the morning, and I felt it.

 

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes with the morning,” we are assured in Psalm 30.  These are words of encouragement and resilience, but mostly, they offer us hope.  And what I did on New Year’s morning was to go out and greet the dawn, with new hope and optimism.

 

We have been through a bleak 10 months.  The losses that everyone has experienced have mounted as the months have dragged on. Huge losses, such as the almost 350,000 deaths in the United States alone.  Small losses, such as the virtual Christmas Eve church services, without the communion of candles lit and held high while singing together.  And losses almost too many to mention in between the huge and the small: jobs and income and housing, and shared time with family and friends. 

 

And now comes a new year. Even during this bleak winter, with Covid cases surging again, and the cold, still-short days, we can begin to feel a resurgence of hope.  Emily Dickenson famously called hope ‘the thing with feathers’, that ‘sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.’  I am sure that many people in the past 10 months have been unable to feel the fluttering of hope, or hear the tune. It is true that the fluttering can become so faint that we might not be able to hear it for a time.  But it can arise again with little urging. A beautiful sunrise. Noticing that the days are beginning to lengthen. A new administration preparing to take the reins in Washington. Above all, vaccines against Covid.  All of these are events that can make the little fluttering of wings feel perceptible, and help us to feel hopeful once again.

 

I have spent some time wondering where hope comes from.  It can arise in response to events, to circumstances such as vaccines, and elections.  But it also arises on its own.  Like joy, it can come with the morning. Hope is part of what makes us human; one of those spiritual traits that calls us more fully into our humanity, such as love, compassion, or creativity. I do not know where it comes from.  But like the ability to care, it is always there, waiting patiently for us to notice it and to respond to it.

 

Hope is not passive.  It is different than wishing. We can wish for things to happen that we can’t really control; we wish for good weather, for a gift, or a phone call.  But hope requires more of us; a response to the fluttering of the thing with feathers.  “Hope should shove you out the door,” Rebecca Solnit said in our reading just now. “Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.”

 

I have watched carefully these last months, and have seen many calls for action right here in our community.  Almost overnight, it seemed, a Facebook group sprang up to coordinate getting food and supplies to people in need. I watched the City of Gloucester mobilize quickly to organize testing to quell an outbreak of the virus.  To act in these ways, people need to have hope that they can make a difference; to imagine something new into life. In turn, the imagining, and the actions in response, create more hope for others.  We nurture hope, we spread it around.

 

I’ve watched this community carefully, as well.  “Hope Rises!” proclaimed the banner that Sally Waite designed and made for the front of our building.  I watched us learn new skills.  Remember those early Zoom services?  And how excited everyone was that they had actually managed to get on and find one another?  The hope of staying connected, staying in relationship, compelled us to try new and hard things. Life did not stand still, no matter how stuck we felt, and continue to feel.  I’ve watched as people have changed jobs, or moved away, in spite of the pandemic.  You have adapted, and never stopped trying to respond to all the changes, the limitations.  You hoped to stay healthy, and to continue with your lives in new ways.

 

I think back to my saying ‘yes’ to watching the sunrise.  That is not a typical response from me at all. But I feel the feathery movement inside these days, and I shoved myself out the door somehow, in the early morning darkness, compelled to try something new, and simply to respond to the urging I am feeling.

 

In the months ahead, hope will rise in America.  We are still in those quiet hours before daybreak. As someone said, the fact that we can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel does mean that we are still in the tunnel.  Indeed we are.  We need to remain extremely careful, and continue to sacrifice, to put the good of the community first, in order to help the light grow brighter and closer. We will continue to be vigilant and caring, out of the hope that we can help save lives. 

 

Hope calls for action, to ‘give yourself to the future.’ More than in most new years, we are so aware of the future dawning.  This year will not just represent a continuation of life as it has always been.  We have experienced a massive upheaval, and we are poised on the threshold of a time of rebuilding. What should the future look like? 

 

My own hope is that we will not return to ‘normal’.  I hope for better than that.  I hope for a more just society; and lasting awareness of the inequities between us that the virus made so apparent.  I hope for equal access to health care. I hope for lasting acknowledgement that often those who are paid least are some of our most important workers. I hope we remember how our skies cleared and we could hear birdsong in the cities.  And because hope calls for action, I ask myself how I will respond.  What will I do to foster a new normal?  How will I nurture hope for our future?

 

 My friends, I have so many hopes for our country, and for all of you.  My greatest hope today is that you too feel some fluttering, and are beginning to envision a new world and a bright future.  What will your response be to the thing with feathers?  How will you spread hope and help us to turn toward the new day dawning?

 

As we move ahead into the future, may we all feel increasing hope, and may we each find ways to foster peace, prosperity, and good health for all. May you feel joy in the morning.  Happy New Year!

 

May it be so,