Today’s reading from Isaiah paints a remarkable, beautiful composite of images: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water. God brings with God all these possibilities – the possibility of life and of transformation. God is a God of possibilities.
However, on a day-to-day basis, possibility seems to be a distant, ambiguous concept. On the contrary, there seems to be an unrelenting outpouring of forces that constrain and undermine life and humanity.
Every day, as I walk in my neighborhood, I see people who are unhoused and unable to meet their basic needs. I know that, thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling, it is now permissible for our government to criminalize these folks if they should choose. Each day, I read about a new manifestation of climate catastrophe: devastating loss of biodiversity; entire land-masses not-so-slowly sinking into the sea; whole regions becoming increasingly unlivable. I am struck by the staggering levels of global hunger and malnutrition, particularly the dire conditions in Sudan. I am devastated by the continual, brutal deaths of the people of Gaza – murdered with bombs manufactured here in the United States. Not to mention that we are all currently facing down an election in which the stakes, perhaps, have never been higher.
I look at the very real conditions we are living in and I quickly see the very opposite of Isaiah’s words. I see impossibility. It feels like lead in my body. How do we resist checking out when so much is so heavy? How do we keeping moving through the weight of impossibility?
I’m brought back to the words of abolitionist and organizer, Mariame Kaba: hope is a discipline. Kaba explains that hope is not a nice feeling or simple emotion. It’s certainly not something our current social and political context invites or encourages. Instead, we practice hope. We engage with hope. We do hope. Importantly, we do hope together.
As a collective practice, hope can and does transform impossibility. I see impossibility being transmuted to possibility through the hopeful activism of youth climate organizers bringing their voices into the halls of power. I see possibility in the coalition of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others fighting for Palestinian self-determination and life. I am buoyed by the large and small-scale mutual aid efforts to get people’s basic needs met. I see all that’s possible when folks choose to have hard conversations with the people in their lives about issues that matter.
In the real darkness of our world today, there is possibility. It’s not always covered by the media. It’s not always easy to see. But it is there. The God of possibilities is there - manifested through the bold, courageous practice of hope that we do together.
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