Hope

Hope Isn’t Easy

~ Bethany ~ Leave a comment

The usual TW of discussion of my religious beliefs as well as some profanity. Also this is a really long post. No apologies for that, consider yourself warned.

“Clusterfuck” That’s the word for today’s reading in the #FuckThisShit devotional calendar. I saw that, and before I even opened my Bible, I found myself laughing and shaking my head. Because yes, that is the word for how my life and how this world, this country feels right now. It feels like everything is in a giant clusterfuck.

On the corresponding, not so NSFW, #RendTheHeavens calendar it was “Roll(Out)” which just made me think of Transformers. My husband had great memories of the show while I had never even seen a single episode of the show. So, early in our dating, I bought the DVDs and we watched the original show together.

Thinking about Transformers reminds me of optimism. The Autobots were always able to save the day with (other than in the movie) no deaths (because, well, kids’ show). It also reminds me how simple life was back in that studio apartment where we watched the episodes together. We didn’t think about life-changing illnesses or sudden heart attacks.

It’s not like life was 100% perfect. We dealt with job loss and the search for a parish home. But, there wasn’t anything big that challenged my optimism. I remember while I was between jobs, after receiving another “we really liked you, but that one other final candidate had just a bit more experience” email, I decided to call my dad.

I was frustrated and worried I was letting him down. However, Dad assured me that I wasn’t letting him down. Actually, he was proud of me. He liked that I was reaching for my dream of making a difference. He was also certain things would work out. He was right, of course. Within a few months of that call I was working for my dream organization with one of the best bosses I have ever had.

For most of my life I have proudly identified as an optimist. Until mid May 2016, any time I felt that optimism wavering, I could (and generally did) call Dad. I wasn’t naive and I didn’t think things would always be perfect, but I never had much trouble finding hope. When I did struggle, Dad would have the words to help me.  I had my crabby moods and frustrations, but also hope and faith that things would work out — that hard work would pay off, that I could change the world because the world was always getting better even if it needed a push, that I could get through anything.

Part of why I was proud to be an optimist, was because it was something I shared with Dad.

Then I lost my dad to a sudden, unexpected heart attack. Then I learned my cancer was back. Then the tumor turned out to be much bigger than expected. Then my beloved cat got so sick he needed surgery followed by an emergency blood transfusion and a stay at an intensive care facility. Oh, then there was my radiation treatments. Plus shitty things happening in my friends’ lives.

Plus there was everything going on in our country and in the world. The massacre at Pulse; anti-immigrant and anti-refugee talk; bombings causing people to need to flee their homes; a candidate for president treating sexual harassment and assault as no big deal and people I’d previously respected claiming “that’s just locker room talk” (no, it isn’t); overt racism; people saying crap like “blue lives matter” while acting offended by the idea that black lives matter; somehow the most overtly racist, in-bed-with-a-foreign-power, neo-Nazi-enabling, anti-feminist, completely unethical fraudster of a candidate won the Electoral College (with Russia’s help); the whole of the GOP rolling over, including saying that it doesn’t matter if the president elect tweets falsehoods; acts of vandalism and violence from the fraudster’s supporters; the continuing destruction of Aleppo; the daily desecration of this country’s Constitution; and so much more.
image of a deep well with a branch across the topMy optimism isn’t so easy to find in the clusterfuck that life seems to currently be. At times it feels like my faith and hope that things can improve, let alone that they will improve is barely present. My hope seems like a cheap and dying flashlight at the bottom of a deep, dark well. I worry that maybe I’m not an optimist anymore, and that sucks.

At a time when I most need to have my dad with me, the aspect of him I most identified with feels like it might be gone. I’m not as generous as my dad was. I’m certainly not as calm and logical. There’s a lot about him that I don’t share, or at least don’t share now, and am not sure I’ll share again. That’s scares me.

But I do share his faith. Dad always said he suspected God was either laughing or crying (or both) at the divisions we humans make. So to Dad, the fact that his parish was Roman Catholic and mine is Episcopalian really doesn’t matter. It’s the same faith at heart.

While talking with my husband last evening, he suggested that my faith and wanting to be an optimist, are optimistic in nature. The fact that I haven’t given into total despair, that I’m not certain things will always be the darkest timeline — that’s hope and hope is a form of optimism.

And I do have hope. It’s dim, but it’s there. I hope that things will get better. I still think it’s worthwhile to fight for equality regardless of gender, race, creed, or sexual orientation; to speak out for animals; to care and not retreat into my own bubble. I think it’s worthwhile partially because I couldn’t live with myself if I ignored injustice. However, I also think it’s worthwhile because I think the fights can be won. It won’t be easy and we’ll suffer defeats. We won’t immediately stop the violence and mistreatment. But we can and will prevail, so long as we don’t stay in despair.

So what’s today’s verse? Revelations 22: 18-19

I warn everyone who hears the prophetic words in this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words in this prophetic book, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city described in this book.”

I don’t have an easy interpretation. It’s the type of verse that makes me hesitate and even worry a little. Is it adding to the words to write about them? To understand them only in English? Is it taking away from the words that it’s been a long, long time since I tried to read the entirety of the Book of Revelations? I don’t know and that leaves me with some fear.

Underneath that fear? There’s hope that this someone comes back to the core faith that God so loves this world, and that somehow there are better days ahead. Somehow I have hope that the world can be healed.

In the words of a Jesuit from Xavier: “Hope is not answers or solutions, it’s faith that something is waiting for us, that there are possibilities. Hope isn’t easy.”

Nothing worthwhile ever was easy.

Sometimes I Live In an Egyptian River

~ Bethany ~ 2 Comments

Apologies for how long it’s been since my last post. I kept meaning to write a post, but then not being able to find the words. Things were too unclear, so it was easier to just pretend they weren’t happening. Denial can be simpler than getting a grip on reality.

View of ruins across the Nile

One of my college professors, Dr. John Fairfield, introduced me to the idea that unclear writing is indicative of unclear thinking (Want to see his writing? It’s on Amazon). He also introduced me to the idea that the best way to understand something is to force yourself to write about it. As you write you’ll find where you need to learn, research, and think. Writing forces you to take what’s been thrown at you and turn it into something you can handle and hold with confidence.

The advice was given for understanding history, but it applies to more than that. The class was Writing in the Public, after all, and I wrote some great papers there. I’m still proud of my paper laying out how the common understanding of Horatio Alger stories as supporting the idea of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is a misinterpretation of the stories — someday I’ll figure out a way to return to that and do something with it, but I digress.

Digressing is easy to do when I don’t want to face reality. Digressing is a form of denial. If I can think about Horatio Alger, I can avoid thinking about reality. Reality right now is that tomorrow I get three little tattoos on my abdomen to ensure that the radiation is always aimed at the correct spot. The day after, Wednesday, I start radiation.

It’s only six weeks, but it’s five days a week for each of those weeks. This first week is weird because I only get two days of radiation before escaping to visit a dear friend and attend the wedding of two other amazing friends. I’m still unsure if this means that three extra days will be added at the end of the six weeks.

I’ve been warned that I’ll be tired, that I’ll have to avoid spice and dairy (other than yogurt). I’ve been told that my skin will be sensitive and might hurt. I’ve been told that all of the side effects will be cumulative. By this time next week I’ll start noticing the fatigue, by a week after I’ll start noticing digestive issues and need to change my diet. The recommended diet is high protein, low fiber, no dairy other than yogurt, avoid seeds, plant skins, and legumes, reduce my sugar, and drink lots and lots of water.

I’m to eat yogurt every morning. My friend Holly picked up multiple bottles of a kind I actually like that’s only available at the farmers market. I forgot to ask about alcohol, but I’m guessing I’m supposed to reduce that since it’s similar to sugar. As someone who adores cheese and dairy, normally eats legumes to get protein, and likes to eat whole apples, this doesn’t sound like a delicious six weeks. Given how food oriented I am, this has been contributing to my crabbiness.

I also won’t know what time my radiation appointments will be until tomorrow. Given that we’re trying to ask friends for rides so my husband doesn’t have to take too much time off work or I have to choose between driving while fatigued or taking an Uber/Lyft for an hour drive each way, that’s really frustrating. It feels like just another reminder of how little control I have over any of this.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it enough to write. I suspect the writing in this post is still unclear because my thoughts are still unclear. The future is incredibly murky, and I suspect anyone would feel some fear about that. I’m afraid that we won’t know how to ask for the help that we’ll so very much need. I’m afraid of the side effects. I’m afraid of the fatigue, doing what I care about for the next two months, and how long it might take to feel close to normal afterward.

Being afraid or in denial won’t keep the future away. It’ll still come. Hopefully it’ll come with kindness and hidden reservoirs of strength. Hope is not unclear. How that hope might manifest is unknown and thus unclear, but the hope itself that exists alongside those fears, that helps me function despite those fears, and that even sometimes quietly calms those fears — that is not unclear.