Image By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org
Karen Hollis | September 24, 2023
Creation 4 - Hope
Psalm 104: 24-35b - Translations by Lynn C. Bauman
24. While we go forth to do our work, they sleep,
and so the earth maintains its passage
through the seasons.
25. O Lord, my God, behind your work,
Your wisdom is the architect of all.
The plenitude of life is yours.
26. I turn and look and see the sea aglint
So full of life and overflowing,
27. Through which our ships of commerce move,
But deeper still those mighty ships of yours,
Your whales, your secret creatures of the deep,
your joy, your sport, your praise.
28. And everything that lives and moves on land or sea
or air turns eyes to look at you
the source of everything.
Alone, you give it all as gift,
you feed a world made hungry by your hand.
29. You give and give, we gather in.
Your arms you open even wider still,
And we are filled overflowing
With generosity of every kind.
30. If you for one small moment would ever hide your face from us,
all creation would shrink in terror and in fear.
If you even briefly held your breath
we would die and pass to dust.
31. You breathe and we spring forth to life,
your breath and beauty fills the face of earth.
32. So may this beauty and the glory that is you and yours remain,
and may all that you have done bring highest joy.
33. For in your presence we are made to tremble out of awe and fear,
and we are set aflame by your bright burning blaze.
34. So while I live and have my breath,
all this shall be my song,
35. And may the poetry of heart and word I speak
rise up as joy to bless the Lord.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
Here in the season of creation we give thanks for God, our Creator, for the earth, our home, we learn how to experience our interconnectedness. Always present is the reality of our changing climate . . . that due to human activity, our planet is becoming less habitable to the expressions of life that have developed here over the last 500 million years. This reality is overwhelming. We watch the news, mention it in passing, move on to the next thing, we do what we can and wonder if we will be able to come together in enough time to create sufficient change. Where do we access hope in the midst of what we’re living through? In the work of Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone and their book Active Hope, hope is not based on good news stories or measurable change. Rather hope is a process – a spiral, really, that cycles round and round. It begins with grounding into gratitude, then honouring the pain and feeling emotions, which leads into spaciousness and room for a new perspective . . . from that place, we go forth to engage the world in new ways . . . which comes around again to gratitude. Hope is trusting in the cycle.
Hope begins with gratitude. So, let us also begin there with a story: my husband, James, and I drove a whole 10 minutes to the northwest corner of Gabriola late one evening last September to see if we could find Jupiter in the sky – do you remember when Jupiter was relatively closer to earth in its orbit and brighter in the sky than usual? We stood by the shore with our binoculars and my star chart phone app open (when I hold my phone up in the sky, it should tell me what I’m looking at.). There I was fiddling with my phone app, trying to get it to work properly when we heard a humpback exhale from no more than 30 meters away. We gasped and looked into the darkness the direction of the sound. I strained my eyes, but couldn’t see anything . . . then we heard another blow. My heart skipped a beat and I strained again to see . . . only darkness. I laughed and opened the eyes of my heart to commune with the humpbacks . . . we listened to their breathing and shared with them the magic of the darkness, the bright, starry sky, the calming rhythms of the waves rolling onto the shore. I never did get my phone app to work and I was never confident that I saw Jupiter . . . but all we had was gratitude when we got in the car to return home. What a wonder, earth and all her creatures, planets in orbit . . . I’m so grateful to be part of creation . . . for the privilege of experiencing life in this embodied form. It’s such a gift.
The next step in the cycle of hope is honouring our pain. It reminds me of the indigenous medicine wheel and the western direction (toward Comox Ave). You may know that the west is associated with autumn, with water, and emotion. Perhaps not coincidentally, whales are deep feeling animals and can share that medicine with the rest of creation. Unlike whales, many of us don’t have partnerships with our feelings. I’m always in process on that. I have big feelings. Sometimes I feel lethargic and weighed down and eventually realize “oh, it must be my feelings.” Ugh, how inconvenient. I feel frustrated or irritated at them when they block my way. I don’t want to stop, I don’t want to feel them, I don’t want to open myself to the hurt that I know is waiting there to be felt. But sometimes I have to before I’m able to move on to the next thing. But every time I do, I survive and come out the other side.
I experience a similar stuckness when it comes to my feelings on climate change. There is so much to feel – perhaps you resonate with that. There’s fear, anger, guilt and shame, anxiety and helplessness. At times it feels overwhelming, as if a whale could come along side us and swallow us whole. And so we freeze, take shallow breaths, and wait for the moment to pass.
Did you ever see the animated movie, Inside Out? It’s set in the psyche of an 11 year old girl named Riley. The main characters are Riley’s emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. Joy is basically in charge and drives most of the time, but when Riley’s world changes, some mishaps in her psyche take Joy and Sadness on an adventure together. Along the way, Joy keeps the energy up as she problem solves how to get them home, always keeping an eye on Sadness for fear that she will do permanent damage. They happen upon Riley’s imaginary friend – an elephant-ish creature with a flying wagon that leaves a rainbow in its wake – he is struggling with all the changes happening in Riley’s world. When Joy is unsuccessful at keeping him functional enough to help them, Sadness comes along side him and empathizes with his struggles and helps him feel his sadness. In that process of feeling, something shifts in him and he is energized with new ideas and new possibilities for getting Joy and Sadness home. Joy is astonished and asks Sadness, “how did you do that?” It’s stunning how powerful our emotions are in their ability to hold us in place OR move through and make room for what is next.
As we journey around cycle, we come to “seeing with new eyes,” which is similar to the northern direction (toward cross) on the medicine wheel. It’s that place of stillness and spaciousness after a good cry, a place of not shallow breaths, but deep ones and looking inward, it’s the dark and cold of winter. It’s the space of Holy Saturday, where Jesus has been placed in the tomb and everyone believes this is the end, not realizing that something larger IS at work. God breathes deep breaths in us for 3 days, as we light candles to illuminate the darkness.
Then, on the morning of the third day, before dawn, something happens, new possibilities come to light, come to life. Jesus who was dead, is now mysteriously alive, mysteriously embodied. For the disciples who meet him at the table in Emmaus, they run back to Jerusalem and share the news with the others . . . it’s a new day, a new world, and their mission and ministry is a whole new ball game. They’re ready for the final step: going forth.
This is the eastern direction (toward hall) on the medicine wheel, associated with dawn, springtime, new life and new growth. This is the space where our hope resonates with the potential that is seeking to take physical form. In the spring I watch the plants in the garden outside - they begin as little sprouts that soon explode with growth in the way new possibilities of all kinds take root and gain momentum as the days get longer and warmer through the season for taking action on ideas that couldn’t form until now. This is the season that bears fruit.
As the Psalmist proclaims, “the earth maintains its passage through the seasons. O Lord, my God, behind your work, Your wisdom is the architect of all.” Seemingly without effort, the earth, tilted on her axis, carries us through the season of light, moving into the darkness, and back again into light. Sometimes I marvel that the story we tell about Jesus follows the same pattern as the turning seasons. We celebrate the light of his birth in the darkness, his brilliant life and ministry, the darkness returning with his death, and after 3 days of stillness and waiting, the light reappearing with his astonishing and mysterious resurrection. This cycle is the continuity of life . . . life cannot be sustained by standing still . . . it can only do so through process. And so we are invited to make this process of active hope a practice: gratitude, honouring feelings, seeing with new eyes, and going forth. We are invited to trust in the cycle and the faithfulness of God that doesn’t fail us. This cycle lived in us doesn’t necessarily follow a 12 month pattern – it may be a daily cycle or take months to complete. We may find ourselves staring into the eye of the whale, unsure if feeling those emotions will be worth it . . . this is the time to trust. The journey on which God leads may be surprising . . . still let us remember that God will never abandon us to despair . . . rather will join us in the darkness and help us find our way into the light. Thanks be to God.