Between now and not yet.
Father Richard Rohr tells us,
The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure,
Without resolution,
And still be content and even happy because our satisfaction is now at another level and our source is beyond ourselves.
February is definitely the hardest month of the year for me.
Here in Colorado we are still in the thick of winter and I am yearning for longer and warmer days.
I see friends who live in different climates post photos of spring emerging and it's hard not to be jealous as I realize there are more months of winter for me.
It is difficult to see the new season but not be living in it yet.
There are people that are getting the vaccine for COVID-19 while others have to wait.
Every single person on the planet has been navigating many of these in between spaces over the past year.
In times that are,
Like Rohr says,
Without closure,
Without resolution,
It can be difficult to feel any sense of stability or groundedness.
Yet it is often between the now and the not yet that I actually learn about hope and that trustful willingness Rohr invites us into.
There have been times in my life when patience has meant the ability to hold out for something I know is coming.
It is an endurance game centered on waiting out the clock for some seemingly assured future positive outcome.
In this paradigm,
Hope is a promise of positivity.
The prolonged nature of this pandemic and the many ways it contracts and expands challenge my previous definition of hope.
I'm not defining hope by my ability to wait the clock or will positivity into being.
Rather,
Hope is an invitation to tap into the goodness of how life itself,
How spirit,
Shows up right here and now,
Between the now and the not yet.
In this unresolved space,
This space without a concrete sense of closure,
I feel more connected to the world around and within me.
When I am not living purely for the future,
I experience the spaciousness unique to living in the fullness and completeness of the now.
Hope is not a promise of what is to come.
It is a way of being that invites me to live into the depth of the moment,
The fullness and completeness of the divine.
