My Hope is Not in This World

and I still need to live as the hands and feet of Jesus here

As I write this, our corner of the world has warmed to -1°F (or -17.22°C). I’m currently recovering from a brutal combination of strep and flu that took up residence in my body 10 days ago. Our yard is still blanketed in the snow and ice that fell the first week of January. For many reasons, personally and nationally, it’s been an exhausting few days. 

Two friends share that they’re facing evacuation from the California fires. Our income was threatened because an app got banned. A new president is sworn in and his first speech is divisive and petty instead of unifying. Hours later, a non-elected man takes the stage to smear victory in his opponents faces and ends with a gesture that sets the world into a roiling boil. People come out in droves to say it was just him being caught up in the moment, it was just because he’s autistic, it was just because he was excited. I keep thinking about how I’m 35 years old and I’ve never once seen a person—excited, autistic or otherwise—accidentally do anything remotely akin to a Nazi salute on a national stage. And even if they did, how any reasonable person (not to mention one affiliated with a governing body) would immediately issue an apology¹ and seek to amend the situation. I have to breathe and accept the fact that working from outrage is not sustainable.

My body is feeling the effects of being bedridden for a week. My brain is feeling the effects of information—and subsequent anger—overload. I’m already bracing for the feedback I’ll get from even mentioning that I’m troubled over what the next four years could look like. I don’t know what else to say except that I’ve never shown up anywhere on the internet with anything other than honesty. 

And honestly, I’m worried. 

I’ve been worried about the state of the Church, of our country, for a while now. It all came to a head for me in 2020. Fissures in our democracy—that had long existed—grew into fractures and cracks that split wide open. I watched as people who claimed to be Christians revealed themselves to be scornful, abrasive, and gleeful over the sufferings of marginalized communities or anyone who disagreed with them. My heart has been heaving over the state of things for quite some time.  

I can’t stop coughing. My ribs ache. Someone DMs me to ask, “I’m genuinely curious. Why are you grieving that Trump won?”. They’re trying to be gracious, but all I can think now is that they haven’t sat and listened to the communities that will be the most affected by the policies and rhetoric that our current president platforms; by the type of people he surrounds himself with and puts in power. How can I sum up the hundreds of stories and voices and perspectives I’ve heard from over the years? I can’t. If the person who messaged me had been truly listening, they wouldn’t need to ask me that question. A bishop stands in a church and quietly challenges our president to have mercy on the least of these. Our president responds saying she is: “ungracious, nasty, not compelling or smart, inappropriate, that her service is boring and uninspiring, and not very good at her job”. I imagine a world where a sitting president calls out a man making a Nazi gesture (on purpose or otherwise) instead of vilifying a gentle bishop in church.² 

The laundry has piled up. The dishes have multiplied in the sink. Life doesn’t wait just because you’re sick or when your country is—literally and figuratively—on fire. I don’t know what to do or what to say, so I just do what I can and say what I must. Eventually I get to a place where the clothes are folded and put away, clean dishes are in the drying rack and I’m trepidatiously typing out my honest thoughts for others to read/judge/leave over. We’re all having to move forward in the ways we can. This is me moving forward. To where? I don’t know. I’m scared of the lonely(er) place I might land in. I’m more scared of staying silent. 

I reach out and grasp my faith in Jesus Christ to my chest. I want to hold on to it, I want it to hold on to me. All around me a storm of anger and dismissiveness and rage-bait and grief swarms. Everything is loud. The communities that raised me are more concerned with calling out and shaming someone’s sin than they are about making sure that same someone is physically/emotionally/mentally safe. ‘AMERICA IS BACK’ is plastered on government websites. I think about how America never went anywhere, it just might have looked different than one group thought it needed to. I wake up to the headline that the KKK is distributing fliers in the state I live in. I remember my beloved Smoky Mountains and how growing up in their forests and ecosystems³ taught me that diversity is good, diversity is healthy, diversity is needed, diversity is how we survive—how all of us will survive. 

The teachings of Jesus tell me that my hope is not in this world or any political administration.

The teachings of Jesus also tell me that I exist in a world with political administrations and I need to live as His hands and feet in the midst of them.

And I’m trying. In the thick of homeschooling and making dinner and scheduling dental appointments and trying to carve out a life from the marble of a cold and cruel world, I’m trying to be warmth and safety and peace to people. All people. Yes, even them. 

The snow that fell three weeks ago is still lingering. Its crystalline flakes have frozen and slabbed together. Our walkways are dangerously glossy and slicked over. Every time our kids go outside I repeat: “Be careful. Pay attention. You have to slow down. This is dangerous. You don’t want to hurt yourself or someone else.”

And today I’m breathing in and out: Be careful. Pay attention. You have to slow down. This is dangerous. You don’t want to hurt yourself or someone else.”

1. I can’t believe I have to say this, but I don’t care who you are, how you voted or what theological persuasion you hail from, calling out and condemning Elon’s gesture (and his abysmal responses to the gesture) is not a controversial thing. We can all be unified in condemning anything even remotely referencing Nazi support.

2. In the three times that Trump ran for president, I never once voted for him. My disdain for the harmful atmosphere he has brought into the political sphere isn’t new.

3. For more on this topic: I cannot recommend the book: “The Understory” by

Lore Wilbert

enough.