Over the past few weeks, I have heard the word despair mentioned in several places. And the beautiful thing is all of them have had the spirit of turning away from it—that we can no longer give it power. These gorgeous lines have stuck with me and surfaced together in moments when I am tempted to think goodness in hard places is impossible.
From Jan Richardson’s blessing entitled “And The Table Will Be Wide” found in her newest book How The Stars Get In Your Bones:
And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.
Then, last Sunday at Highlands Church here in Denver, co-pastor Rachael McClair opened the service with this short Rumi poem:
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.
Finally, Anand Giridharadas’ interview with Rebecca Solnit this past week discusses her book The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change. In his intro to the interview (from his substack newsletter called The Ink!) he writes:
But we shouldn’t concede to Donald Trump power he doesn’t now have. We shouldn’t build up a weak man into a strongman through our fear.
My favorite quote from her book that Anand reads at the beginning of the interview reminds me that setback isn’t the same as defeat.
“The fury of the backlash is itself evidence of the significance of what was achieved. We have won so much.”
May we all, this coming Holy Week, turn away from the despair we are accustomed to, refuse to ride in its caravan and not concede power to darkness even when we struggle to see truth in the backlash!
