about cynicism and hope

Soon after I got to Nicaragua last week a thought came into my head that surprised me.  The thought was: "this is too big."

There is too much poverty, there have been too many failed attempts to fix it, there are too many imperfect systems, people are too selfish....it's all just too big.  The thought came in a voice that alarmed me, that shook my shoulders and rattled me up.  It was the voice of cynicism, and came from within me and it made me afraid. 

In the instant that this little sentence echoed inside of me I realized how fragile hope is.  I realized how poor a job I have done of fighting for it , of defending it within myself over the past year.  It is the type of thing you have to stand up for.  

As I started having these thoughts and was struggling with this new spirit of cynicism inside myself, I got to know a group of tender-hearted Minnesotans.  There were twenty of them on the mission trip I was helping to lead and they came to Nicaragua with an abundance of light.  Their hope glimmered and shone everywhere they went.   

I watched them encounter  darkness and poverty with eyes of love.  I watched them smile inside the most overwhelmingly poor places with tears on their faces, dreaming of what could become there and pulling out the good that already existed.  I listened as they poured out their hurt and pain, as they acknowledged their brokenness, as they pleaded with Jesus to come and be among them.  

Many moments I just watched them in awe, so challenged and so encouraged by the hope they made the conclusion of their stories.  It is not easy to do that. 

I've been thinking about how when things in this world make me sad or weary I construct this little cave inside myself and I go there to stay.  It is built by all my heartbreaks and disappointments.  The darkness of it feels familiar, and it feels safe.  And the more time I spend there the more and more I distrust the light just beyond the door of this cave, just beyond the pain.  I stop believing it could help me.  I start remembering how foolish it has made me feel, how it has burned me, and how scary it would be to go out and live in it again.  

I sit in this cave and cynicism wraps its fingers all around me.  

But how sad and lonely is that place? I'm learning again, slowly, the depths of joy and the greatness of hope.  I am learning how to peer alongside the edge of what bears me down and to trust that it is good. 

Living a life of hope is not living an easy life, and I don't think I knew that until now.  It is far scarier and more courageous than living in a cave of your own bitterness. You are asked to trust, you are asked to be a fool, you are asked not to give up and to dream the craziest things imaginable for this world and for other people.  

Our hopes will not play out as we want them to, and that is a very hard and heartbreaking thing.  But the way our hopes construct us and bring us joy - what ultimately comes from living in a place of light even when it is tempting to stay in the dark - that is the true reward.  I do not know what that will look like, and I think that every day it will be a little scary for me to leave the cave and to walk in this world with my eyes open and my heart expectant.   But I will keep trying to go, until I recognize that old voice inside myself that believes there is nothing too large for hope to swallow.