Hope and Despair

It just occurred to me how very far we've come. There I was, procrastinating on my ever-growing to-do list, when it just . . . hit me.

I find myself frustrated a lot. A whole lot. I wonder every day what on earth I'm so-called "fighting for." It seems like our existence is just a balancing game, that for every good one person does, someone else does "evil." The idealistic "perfect world" seems like a foolish fantasy: if everything is "good," than nothing is. You can't understand joy without understanding pain. And it seems every time we make "progress," we're simply faced with a new challenge, a new evil, to deal with. I often wonder if it'll ever end. Will we ever learn to love and not hate?

My realisation did not come in word form, so I am struggling to express my hope in the face of the despair which was so easy to articulate. Hope, some might say, is foolish, but perhaps it is despair that is truly foolish. We have come far from tribal wars and never ending conquests. Our society no longer praises things like slavery and the oppression of women. Places which practice these are scorned, looked down upon as barbaric and crude. Even homophobia is starting to look like intolerant asshole-ery. A Christian and a Jew can not only be friends, but they can get married, have kids, and hold onto their beliefs.

To see these things and still believe that the world is headed backwards is foolish. To believe that humanity can only do evil and not good is blindness. To think we are anything but selfish, hateful, destructive creatures is utterly asinine. Evil is not our nature, but our response to a lack of hope and faith. Faith, not in any particular religious doctrine nor in the life and ministry of any particular person, but faith in the inherent ability to do good in every single human being and faith that love can and will triumph over evil again and again and again. Faith that even the most selfish, hateful, and destructive among us have the capacity to be transformed by the power of love.

It is our pain and our despair which makes us forget, which makes us turn to selfish, hateful, destructive actions, but love can heal our pain and our despair, if only we make room for it to completely transform us and the world around us. We have come a very long way, and though we still have a very long way to go, I have faith that we can do it.