Hope is tough: reflections in a time of COVID-19

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand the nature of hope by drawing on the Biblical books of Lamentations and 1 Peter as well as insights from contemporary commentators. I explore how the experience of the Israelites was one of articulating the pain and remaining with it. They did not rush through, but expressed it and sat with it. Naming and articulating the pain and grief is a form of hope in itself. It begins to give some agency and some way of encountering the grim reality being lived. The paper discusses the absence of God's voice in Lamentations and what possibilities that offers for those who are suffering. It argues that voicing lament and pain can be a form of resistance and a path to healing. Then hope can dare to be expressed actions–crying out, remembering, keeping silent, repenting and praying. The public practice of lament is a way of keeping hope alive amidst the despair. The paper also explores the idea that disaster can lead to newness and change which also engenders hope. Drawing on ideas from 1 Peter and contemporary writers, the paper concludes with accounts of hope, domestically, locally and globally, which have emerged out of the suffering in our present crisis of COVID-19.