A message of Hope from the chaplaincy

Hope is the thing which motivates us to keep doing ‘stuff’ in the face of adversity. Hope seems to be in short supply at the moment.  Post pandemic, the Russia – Ukraine conflict, cost of living crisis,  latest Middle East conflict and  climate change worries, it is little wonder we are worn down and wondering if this modern world we inhabit is any way secure.  What kind of world are we leaving to those who follow us?  Artificial intelligence possibly threatens our children’s future, despite all our advances in science and technology, racism, populism, and xenophobia are on the rise.

Roy Scranton writes about climate change issues. He gave one of his books the gloomy title of ‘We’re doomed, Now What?’  But despite his predictions of bad outcomes he refuses to give up hope.  He links it to faith.  It could be faith in the sense of religion, or faith in the intrinsic beauty and resilience of our world, or faith in the belief that most human beings are not bad most of the time.  (Good news hardly ever gets reported – bad news makes the headlines!!)  He wrote; “For me hope is always connected to faith because you don’t hope for the mundane.  You hope for things which you don’t have control over.  I do have faith in human resilience and the human ability to adapt to difficult circumstances, and still find ways to lead meaningful and rich lives.”

Hope is about not looking away in the face of adversity, but facing it head on, knowing that any achievements are real and tangible, even if no one else apparently knows about them.  For Christian’s, Advent is all about this hope.  Advent is the feast of our hope, the feast of God-with-us, and it offers a timeless template on how we must approach life’s challenges.  At the end of the four weeks Advent is Christmas.  That first Christmas celebrates the true power of vulnerability, a helpless child, born into difficult times, of parents who did not fully realise what was happening, and things totally out of their control.   Sound familiar?  Welcome to our world, in all its beauty and frailty and despair – but full of hope and people striving, hoping, and achieving.