sometimes all we do is cope.
Somewhere on the steepest slope
there'll be an endless rope
and nobody crying -- Patty Griffin
I have been hoping for a job. That seems like a nice thing to hope for, not terribly far-fetched. I have a proven ability to work. I can make coffee, I can also help people. I can think. Does anyone want to pay me to think? I interview well, know how to dress, speak articulately under pressure.
Juxtapose the aforementioned facts with the rat race that is the economy. For example, I saw at least 60 people waiting to get a job at the restaurant to which I applied yesterday. In the space of two hours. Multiply that by the 4 open days of hiring, not to mention the people I did not see. This makes my chances of getting said job 1/240, or maybe higher (or lower) given advantages (or disadvantages) I may have.
If hope is an equation, then, I deduce that I ought to hope about 1% for this job. Use 1% of my brain cells thinking about it, 1% of my time preparing for it, 1% of my disappointment, etc.
What a weenie notion of hope. It deserves a lower-case "h".
What is the undeterred hope that Paul writes about in his letters? The patient hope of Israel through long centuries of exile? What about Hope?
And--
what does Hope have to do with hope?
What does the resurrected Christ have to do with unemployment or aimlessness or singleness or weariness or disappointment? When faced with lower-case "h" hopelessness, do we take refuge in a transcendent Hope that somehow glosses over earthly shadow? Do we have to live divided between spirit and matter, hopeful on the one hand, hopeless on the other, or is there a harmony of the two?
I may not get a job. Sure I am pretty capable and qualified, but so are 7,000,000 other Seattleites who check Craigslist and Starbucks.com voraciously. I have been so used to getting what I need when I need it, whether that be job, education, grades, money, appreciation or friendship, but I am no longer a sure ground for my hope. My small hope must be encompassed in the larger One, that the fullness of it may break into the mundane, musty corners of self-sufficiency and contend with disappointment and fear.
Patty G has a nice thing going for her in Nobody Cryin', its a great song, but it speaks of coping now so that at the very end "there'll be and endless rope and nobody cryin'". I want hope now, pressed down, shaken together and running over. Not meager crumbs but water turned to wine, and fish busting out of nets that should be empty. I want a single, great, resurrection hope as I approach the job market that is crumbling and bank account that is shrinking and future that is wandering. The same hope now that is also to come.
There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to One Hope-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father over all... Ephesians 4:4-6
