Upon reading the title of this column, it can be confusing. The description of despair is more or less easy to understand. When confronted with the world we are now in, it seems rather hopeless and we lament there is really nothing we can do about it.

Optimism counters that hopeless feeling that there is a relief on the horizon. Believing perhaps in a coming regime change there will be change that is beneficial to us. The banner of someone that promises what we long for, whatever our personal belief is in a better world. For us.

The despair of course knowing that this will not happen and that things will not go as we expect. Optimism takes a hold and we feel that if we just sit tight, everything will work out OK.

Much akin to Pollyanna thoughts. Don’t worry, be happy as a popular song we have heard.

Nothing to be done, or it will be alright in the end. I find it an odd conundrum as both attitudes are in conflict with the faith I embrace. Most certainly, my life and the life of my family is pretty good as my scribe, the gator always says. It is. We have a lovely place to live and many good friends and the ability to move about and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Literally as the garden and labor provides food and repair of things that do break down.

We know, all the way back to the Diache and the Westminister confession, that there is a real solution and a way to deal with our world. A fallen world and one with joy and sorrow. Oppression and helpfulness. A world that has been promised by our Creator that is not our home but a place of formation and life. Not prosperity nor futility experienced with either optimism nor despair but with the answer for everything. Hope.

Hope indeed that can be expressed by us with belief that there is indeed a home for us that will be fulfilling and joyful. All life ends in death and yet the promise we sing in our faith filled rooms with our brothers and sisters is the one answer. Faith.

Through the ages before us, our shinning light has been the incarnation of faith itself. The impossible visit by the Creator of everything that was and will be. He told us centuries ago that our world would indeed be filled with both sorrow and joy. He experienced both things when, hard to believe, impossible for some, He walked among us and taught again and again those things. Do not despair and wallow in fear, do not sit tight and think it will all work out.

Walk as I walk He said, follow me to true life and become children of God. This is the answer to all things. Hope which is Grace which leads to Faith, the very gift of God. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator scribe.

with thanks to Carl R. Truman ‘Strange new world‘