Hope: Future-Tense Desires of the Present
Friday, January 20, 2022
Poem by Maya Angelou, Artwork by Jean Michel Basquiat
INVOCATION
Comfort, Spirit. Lead on.
EPIPHANY
At least once a day for the past year, I’ve experienced a moment when I’m overcome with looming thoughts about death and dying.
Though I’m not sure, I think this is what happens when the heartthrobs and it-girls of the day are suddenly old enough to be the parents and the grandparents (and sometimes even the great-grandparents) of the current array of icons and celebrities. This is what happens when you start receiving more news about the deaths of friends and loved ones than you do wedding and baby shower invitations. It certainly must be a common affliction during a pandemic.
Last week, my sister called to ask me if I’d heard that a childhood friend who shared the same birthdate as me had passed away. I hadn’t. She was the only friend I knew personally who’d entered the world the same exact day that I did. Though we hadn’t been in touch in decades, her death felt surreal. It reiterated the looming truth that just as sure as we all were born, we all too must die. Is there any way to make the latter as celebratory and hopeful as the former?
I recently read a medical study in which research showed that patients diagnosed with a life-threatening illness who hope for a cure or remission fair better than patients who have lost all hope. The same is true of terminally-ill patients who know they will die. In fact, those who are terminal and have no hope for being cured, but maintain hope for “a meaningful quality of life in their remaining days and a good death,” show even more benefits than those who hope for a miraculous cure:
Fostering hope is not the same as fostering blind optimism, and a health care infrastructure that encourages patients to continually chase the possibility of a cure no matter the likelihood that it will be successful does patients a disservice by setting them up for crushing disappointment. Directing our hopes to more tractable ends is thus an important way to better serve the interests of those who find themselves in seemingly hopeless circumstances.
Perhaps this study proves that hope constitutes the tangible, most possible, future-tense desires of the present.
Most everyone desires to die peacefully, and there are plenty of things we can practice in hopes of easing the burden of death for ourselves and our loved ones. Likewise, most everyone desires to have meaningful quality of life with their remaining days. And again, there are plenty of things we can practice in hopes of increasing our quality of life each and every day.
For me, this kind of hope looks like eating right, getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, laughing as often as I can, releasing worry and having a good life insurance plan and well-thought out will. It also looks like spending the rest of my days practicing love, hope, and faithfulness as I humbly pursue justice and mercy.
INTERCESSION
Adapted from Liturgies from Below
O God,
Give us the strength of your everlasting embrace.
We pray for the peace that your love provides for everyone.
Move us to transform the world,
and let all death become a song.
Amen
CHANT
O God Who Clothed Us in Comfort,
Comfort us in the midst of death.
O God Who Planted the Tree of Life and Death,
Deliver us from fear of death.
O God Who Called Forward the Light,
Reflect within us Eternal Light.
BENEDICTION
Now, for the remainder of our days here on earth, may we rest in eager hope and expectation for the solace of ageless, never-ending rivers of light.
Selah.
Today my sister in law was added to the lung transplant list she has such high hopes for healing Mother of Hope let it be
This was just what I needed to read today; thank you.