We live in seemingly hopeless times. There is a climate crisis, a crisis in international relations, and a growing gulf between the super-rich and the common person. Society is driven by prejudiced against the alien and against the wealth creators, the socially inept and those needing care. We live in polarized times and to add to our grief, we seem to be in a state of managing perpetual enmity between states and creeds. Possibilities of technology are at once liberation and threat. To live is to be caught up in a tension, to be pulled and it is difficult to think.

Of course, we have a choice to ignore what is going on or to engage with it. The way of creation means it’s difficult to ignore. Where we lack a respect, we find calamity falls. Each of the crises has a way of biting chunks out of our daily lives that hurt. To live is to suffer. And as we battle our biology, geography, and socioeconomic inheritance, none of these are our fault, but we inherit their blessings and curses.

Climate is changing. Technology fails. We grow old and need care. There is an inevitable progress towards things falling apart. We get old and things wear out. In the context of material exhaustion of resources and abuse of nature, there are seemingly exponential harms that mean it becomes difficult to ignore what’s going on. So, it seems wise to engage.

This is where I have encountered hopelessness. We lack agency. What we do has no effect and no one listens. As we look around, what appears is the anarchy of a riot or the certainty of blaming others. To engage seems to lead to violence, rage against the system. It’s an ever-turning blame cycle that ends in misery. We want our opponents to fail and we look for power for our cause, resorting to polemic and to straw manning rather than trusting in a fragile and vulnerable consensus. We don’t believe that in our weakness we are strong. We reject the narrow way of peace for the sake of our opinion. We have to be right and hold power collectively and coercively.

So what’s the answer for me today? I believe it’s in a trust in the faithfulness of the Spirit. I think it’s trusting that there is a spiritual realm of good and for evil, that what we do creates space for life and for death. Why is this an answer for me? Is because it centres me in a hope. My actions, words and prayers are effective. We say a journey begins with one step. I believe in the impact of right actions, kind words and fecund silence. Each of us can quiet ourselves and step into the beyond. Creation I hold is a process in which how I relate, how I love, forms life. And if I turn my back on compassion and charity, I allow death the space. We say a smile is infectious. So is hope and so is prayer. They create room for goodness to form, for flourishing in the face of adversity. This is more than saccharine statements. So yes, let us do good and pray knowing much is availed. By engaging the spirit, our hearts grow and things change for the good.

Attribution

Cueva de las Manos, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/58826 [retrieved October 26, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b.jpg.