Losing Optimism and Finding Hope
It's not hard to see that our society, especially young people, is starting to lose faith in progress.
Take the proliferation of dystopian young adult fiction, The Hunger Games, The Walking Dead, the fascination with zombies...
Or the Fridays for Future movement, whose leader cautions people against easy hope and urges them to freak out.
Or the awareness among many people my age and (especially) younger that we might not have the same standard of living as our parents, that maybe things won’t just keep getting better and better.
Mary Jo Leddy, patron saint of refugees (not really, but she should be), puts it this way:
“The storyline called progress has shaped [North] America more than any place else on earth. Even Christians who supposedly lived by another storyline internalized this myth so deeply that it became difficult for them to separate optimism from hope.”
I find myself looking for hope beyond this cultural optimism recently. When our lives or our readings of the news belie the myth of never-ending progress, when it doesn't seem as if things will just keep getting better and better, when more and more people are predicted to be forced to flee their homes, what is biblical hope?
If it's more than faith in progress, what is it? How do you live in hope in the midst of refugee crises and climate catastrophe?
I wonder if hope is that choice to keep on keeping on, even when you know it could get worse.
He applied for that visa, even though the immigration consultant told him his chances were slim to none. She moved across another border, hoping the war wouldn't follow her and her children this time. He filed an appeal after a failed refugee hearing, even though the last judge hadn't been educated on his country's ongoing troubles.
A refugee, technically, is defined by fear. (Not just a desire for a better life, as some might say.) The measuring stick that is held up against my friends' stories of flight was developed after World War 2:
“A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
But maybe refugees could just as easily be defined by hope. A daring hope, a hope-against-hope for safety for themselves and their family. Perhaps it isn't my refugee-d friends who need hope, but who already embody hope. Maybe refugees are people who dare to hope.
A few snapshots from the last month:
Legal Aid for refugees in Ontario was restored!! It's a temporary fix, since the federal government has just stepped in for a year to make up for Ontario's cuts to the program, but it means that at least for now refugee claimants will be supported as they navigate the refugee system to prove that they need protection.
I spoke with Rebecca Walker from World Renew at Bethel CRC in Waterdown and got to hear part of the story of a Karen family who the church had sponsored.
I met with a Host to debrief a recent hosting experience, and was blown away by her excitement. This was her first experience interacting with refugees, and she has really caught the bug! It is an honour to get to be part of her learning journey.
I brought two girls from church to visit a young Guest from Yemen. She spends a lot of time alone with her dad, and she has a way of almost screaming with joy when she laughs that always makes tears come to my eyes. To see the 3 of them connecting across cultures, without a shared language, over Beanie Boos, was such a gift. More than housing, that's what this is about. Binding us together with love.
I had a chance to try out my French interpretation skills to help a Guest from Mali communicate as he got free glasses from Lenscrafters through their One Sight program. (Yay Lenscrafters!)
Between the highlights and lowlights, there are the same day to day kinds of tasks...keeping spreadsheets updated, wrestling though program details, and the like. And physiotherapy. Lots of physiotherapy for my arm.
Some ways you can be praying for Open Homes Hamilton:
For refugee families to be reunited. The video above was made by a refugee friend who is waiting to be reunited with his wife, especially for the sake of his daughter, whose face appears in the video. The Arabic song is about a child missing their mother, so if that isn’t just a punch in the gut…
For upcoming elections in the U.S. and Canada--may Christians in particular be truth-tellers about refugees.
For more Companions for Open Homes! We need people to accompany refugees to appointments, help them navigate things like bus schedules and grocery shopping, invite them over for dinner, etc.