Wednesday, Jan. 27
By Katherine Schneider, for the CVPost
With a new administration in Washington and vaccines for the COVID-19 virus being rolled out, I hear hopes flying high. But I worry.
No administration could accomplish all the good things that are being hoped for, especially not soon. At the current level of vaccinations in Wisconsin, it would take several months to vaccinate even all the 1B category folks.
When the things hoped for don’t happen, there’s this piece of human nature that makes us get sad, mad and bitter and look for someone to blame.
Those of us with disabilities may be a step ahead in understanding hope. A definition of hope from Alexa is revealing: “Hope is the belief that things will turn out for the best.” Notice no specifics and no time line given!
Two examples
Take Joni Eareckson Tada for example. A quadriplegic since her teens and the author of several books including Gaining a Hopeful Spirit, she’s moved from early hoping for recovery to using the insights from her life in a wheelchair to encourage others.
An elder author that I go to for hope is Anne Lamott. She points out in Almost Everything that hope springs from what is right in front of us, that which surprises us and that which “seems to work.”
She acknowledges that scary things are real too, but focuses on the little signs of hope.
Hope during the pandemic might be that neighbors are helping neighbors; parents are supervising their children’s educations in addition to their jobs and grocery store clerks come to work even though they may well be exposed to COVID-19. If we focus on the small daily signs of hope, we may be inspired enough to go from seeing the hope to being the hope.
As Amanda Gorman said in her magnificent Inaugural poem, “For always there is light…If only we’re brave enough to be it.”