Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12)
This morning my heart is aching. Dad is having mobility issues. He spends all day on the couch, and so now he can’t get up. He has these notions about life and death that just aren’t working out the way he wants, and I don’t have a magic wand to make everything all better.
I find myself thinking about hope and survival. I’m beginning to see that I grew
up in a somewhat normal late 20th century home. We were raised to be hard-working, but food is as near as the grocery store, etc. As the baby of the family, and somewhat younger than the rest, I got some privileges my siblings didn’t. As I face the challenges of my life at the moment, I can relate to Dad’s difficulties. Things for Americans have gotten easy. We can spend way too much time on the couch of our lives (if not the literal couch) and therefore, we’re weak. We refuse to do the things that will keep us healthy and therefore, we’re sick. We want someone – often the government – to come along and put us in a place where someone will come along and do everything for us. Of course, that knight in shining armor at a distance often turns out to be a ninety-eight-pound weakling, or a child wearing soup cans up close. Even if “his” heart is in the right place, there is no amount of money or strength that will meet all the needs, and the needs keep growing as we get more hopeless, weaker, and sicker.
As I think about my own situation, I hear whispers, and louder than whispers, saying “There’s nothing you can do. What are you going to do? You’re too weak, too fat, too old, too stubborn, too proud, too everything that’s bad and too little of anything that would lead to a decent job. And – earn a living writing? Don’t make us laugh!” I know – God is in control, and He will take care of me, but the voices are still there. They create a longing for stability, strength, competence. I think about the videos I’ve seen about how Millennials don’t know how to sew on a button, or change a tire, or cook a chicken, or…. And I think about my plans to put in raised beds and to expand my garden next spring.
It’s not much. It might seem silly, but what if our easy, modern life has weakened us? What if what will give us at least some hope, what will meet at least some of our most basic longings and therefore at least contribute to life is rejecting modernity and learning to do the things people did on their own for centuries? I’m not interested in doing my laundry in a creek, but how much more hope would I have if I knew I could grow enough vegetables to feed my family, and how to compost and collect seeds for the next year, which would lower costs? How much hope would I gain if I knew how to sew well enough to make things that I need, or even that I could sell?
How much is one’s hope made stronger by knowledge? What knowledge? We live at a time when access to knowledge is unprecedented, and yet we grow hopeless. Perhaps it’s time to turn that around in our own lives.
I find myself thinking about hope and survival. I’m beginning to see that I grew
up in a somewhat normal late 20th century home. We were raised to be hard-working, but food is as near as the grocery store, etc. As the baby of the family, and somewhat younger than the rest, I got some privileges my siblings didn’t. As I face the challenges of my life at the moment, I can relate to Dad’s difficulties. Things for Americans have gotten easy. We can spend way too much time on the couch of our lives (if not the literal couch) and therefore, we’re weak. We refuse to do the things that will keep us healthy and therefore, we’re sick. We want someone – often the government – to come along and put us in a place where someone will come along and do everything for us. Of course, that knight in shining armor at a distance often turns out to be a ninety-eight-pound weakling, or a child wearing soup cans up close. Even if “his” heart is in the right place, there is no amount of money or strength that will meet all the needs, and the needs keep growing as we get more hopeless, weaker, and sicker.
As I think about my own situation, I hear whispers, and louder than whispers, saying “There’s nothing you can do. What are you going to do? You’re too weak, too fat, too old, too stubborn, too proud, too everything that’s bad and too little of anything that would lead to a decent job. And – earn a living writing? Don’t make us laugh!” I know – God is in control, and He will take care of me, but the voices are still there. They create a longing for stability, strength, competence. I think about the videos I’ve seen about how Millennials don’t know how to sew on a button, or change a tire, or cook a chicken, or…. And I think about my plans to put in raised beds and to expand my garden next spring.
It’s not much. It might seem silly, but what if our easy, modern life has weakened us? What if what will give us at least some hope, what will meet at least some of our most basic longings and therefore at least contribute to life is rejecting modernity and learning to do the things people did on their own for centuries? I’m not interested in doing my laundry in a creek, but how much more hope would I have if I knew I could grow enough vegetables to feed my family, and how to compost and collect seeds for the next year, which would lower costs? How much hope would I gain if I knew how to sew well enough to make things that I need, or even that I could sell?
How much is one’s hope made stronger by knowledge? What knowledge? We live at a time when access to knowledge is unprecedented, and yet we grow hopeless. Perhaps it’s time to turn that around in our own lives.
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