“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1, 8

I know this is true, but for some reason, I’m stuck on hope. I keep hoping that WW3 will be averted. I keep hoping that our politicians will become functional. I keep hoping for healed lives.

And praying. I know some people think prayer is meaningless, but I can attest to the fact that it changes things. At least it changes me. It reminds me to align with truth and love. It reminds me to act. And it reminds me that this is God I’m talking with.

So here’s what I’ve been musing on. I think our country is in the middle of a pandemic. Not the Covid one. Another one. It’s “a disease affecting a whole country at the same time.” It’s a disease of having to win 100% at all costs. Of choosing against cooperation.

“Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization.” Peter Kropotkin, Historian and Philosopher

As an experiment in hopelessness, I think I’ll just say out loud that there’s NO way we can cooperate. Then those bent on competition will want to prove me wrong and decide to cooperate, just to show me a thing or two!!!

Lord, heal us of immaturity.

I looked up examples of cooperation in Congress and smiled at the results. Beginning with the 1787 “Great Compromise” (writing of the Constitution) through Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals” through Truman’s across-the-aisle Supreme Court nomination through John McCain’s many successful cooperative endeavors, there’s quite a list. Major Bipartisan Compromises Throughout U.S. History | Stacker

In other words, it can be done.

I’m not sure why I’m writing about hope right now with all the sabers rattling. I just don’t want to lose sight of it.

“Dear God,

I am full of wishes,
full of desires,
Full of expectations.
Some of them may be realized, many may not,
but in the midst of all my satisfactions and disappointments,
I hope in you.
I know that you will never leave me alone and will fulfill your divine promises.
Even when it seems that things are not going my way,
I know that they are going your way and that in the end, your way is the best way for me.
O Lord, strengthen my hope, especially when my many wishes are not fulfilled.
Let me never forget that your name is Love.

Amen.” ~ Henri Nouwen