One Step in Front of the Other - Hope

Wednesday evening Vice President Joe Biden used the image of putting one foot in front of another. That is hope. That is hope. We are invited to embody that which is not yet even when it appears as though despair and fear are winning the day. Hope has to do with movement. Hope is the power that takes us into and through doom and gloom because hope cannot be disrupted by naysayers. Instead, hope allows us to face the doom and gloom and not run from it. We simply keep putting one foot in front of another forging an alternative to the a world some try to paint as the end of all things.

Hope keeps moving - it keeps rising - even when death in all of its voices and faces seems to be the prevailing wind of the day. It is never easy to put that one foot in front of another. It is much easier to become a part of the doom and gloom because from that position we can convince ourselves that we must stage a battle against this prevailing wind. It is here that we must be watchful. This battle is actually nothing more the same prevailing wind of fear. These battles lead only to the same doom and gloom which is now the rallying cry of another hope-less adventure in life.

In many ways, I think it is the poor - the left out - the lowly - the defeated - the disenfranchised - the forgotten who go forward in hope. There is not much they can count on to help them through the day. Notwithstanding the biases and prejudice and violence against them, we hear the endless stories of those who keep on putting one foot in front of the other. Most often we hear the stories of people who once had nothing - faced walls of bias and prejudice - felt the whip of hatred - endured hardship upon hardship. These are the stories of great entrepreneurs and those who have nothing at all. We love the stories of those who have made it. We love the stories of those who seem to have nothing but they are rich in character and vision. Too often though, being rich in character and vision means nothing within the movement of our society. And yet, what a fertile ground for hopefulness to spring eternal.

Hope is aware of the turmoil of the day. Hope looks around and sees brokenness and despair. Hope wakes up in a world that appears to have been won by others. Hope walks into this day to face whatever will take place. All this is done because the present is not the end - the present doesn't rule the lives of the hopeful - the present provides us with the opportunity to  let hope unfold even  as we would simply like to escape - the present becomes the first act of a new way to live one step in front of another. 

I don't know about you, but it is quite an experience to pay attention to how doom and gloom sounds and looks in the world around me. The same can be said for hope. It is as though two worlds are simultaneously present within each moment. Maybe that is why the book of Revelation is such an odd sounding story. That apocalyptic vision is one in which reality is faced - with all of its monsters and death. It is, though, the story of how hope wins the day - cannot be defeated - continues to be a part of a wonder-filled creativity even as some powers are working to destroy all things. We are encouraged to step into that wonder - that creativity - that life that walks through the doom and gloom  one foot in front of another. 

When you are being overcome by the powers of the day that are not able to see the vision of God's peaceable Reign, look around. The only way I am able to carry on putting one foot in front of another is that the lives of others who are all around me - people I know and do not know - keep showing me how to do it. Through their words - through their actions - through what appears to be nonsense - through the death-defying resistance to the way thing have been written in stone, I am given a glimpse of life empowered by hope. And all of this hopefulness into which we are invited to live is nothing more than the time at hand and the next step we take.
TRRR