{"id":1633,"date":"2021-07-07T11:22:54","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2021-07-07T11:22:54","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:22:54","slug":"fear-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/fear-and-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In these times I wrestle with abject fear.<\/p>\n

Fear of people who no longer share the vision of the idea and ideals on which this nation was founded.
\nFear of those in power being invested in power rather than service.
\nFear of the \u2018religious\u2019 right.
\nFear of armed violence.<\/p>\n

And then there all the people I am afraid for, including myself:
\nFear for women.
\nFear for people of color.
\nFear for immigrants.
\nFear for Asia-Americans and African-Americans and Latinx-Americans.
\nFear for the LGBTQAI community.<\/p>\n

We have spent decades bending the arc of history toward justice, as Dr. King proclaimed.
\nAnd now.
\nAnd now the backlash.
\nAnd now the hysteria.
\nAnd now the fear.
\nAnd now the hatred unleashed in thousands of different ways
\nin our churches
\nin our legal system
\nIn our laws<\/p>\n

And I am very afraid.<\/p>\n

Add to that that I am a pastor and called to speak hope.
\nHow do we hope in the face of terror?
\nHow do we sing in a land that has become strange to us?
\nHow do we stand against a mighty storm?<\/p>\n

Parts of Psalm 137 float in my head:<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0How could we sing the\u00a0Lord\u2019s song
\nin a foreign land?
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05<\/sup>\u00a0If I forget you, O\u00a0Jerusalem,
\nlet my right hand wither!
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 6<\/sup>\u00a0Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
\nif I do not remember you\u2026<\/p>\n

Part of hope is remembering who we are called to be,
\nto not forget who we are, no matter how short we have fallen.<\/p>\n

And sometimes hope is the beacon toward which we strive in apocalyptic times.<\/p>\n

The writers of biblical apocalyptic literature faced the threat of death, annihilation and, what seemed to be, overwhelming odds. Many were tortured. Many were killed. Many hid away in underground caves. Demonized and dismissed. Who could speak hope in those times? And what was hope? It seems to me that in some ways hope was holding on to the vision, believing that something greater than the current evil not only exists but will triumph.<\/p>\n

I think of the hope of \u00a0the apocalyptic writers of a holy city, of a place where every tear is dried, where the table is open to all, and groaning under the lovely burden of more than enough. \u00a0Jessie Jackson taught me something about preaching hope in dark times.<\/p>\n

I think of his chant “Keep hope alive!” and his call to us:
\n“You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes, but don\u2019t stop with the way things \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 are. Dream of things as they ought to be. Dream. Face pain, but love, hope, faith and \u00a0 dreams will help you rise above the pain. Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress, but you keep on dreaming, young America.”<\/p>\n

He offered hope as a pastor and has taught me the value and the courage it takes to speak hope in the midst of terror. I leave you with the close to his speech given in Atlanta in 1988 during the Democratic National Convention:
\n” Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high; stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don\u2019t you surrender!
\nSuffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end faith will not \u00a0 \u00a0disappoint.\u00a0You must not surrender! You may or may not get there but just know that you\u2019re qualified! And you hold on, and hold out! We must never surrender!! America will get better and better.\u00a0\u00a0Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In these times I wrestle with abject fear. Fear of people who no longer share the vision of the idea and ideals on which this nation was founded. Fear of those in power being invested in power rather than service. Fear of the \u2018religious\u2019 right. Fear of armed violence. And then there all the people … Continue reading Fear and Hope<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,39,13,21,23,25,19,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1636,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions\/1636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}