Mike Paschall . com

I wish I had written this.  I did not.  I suspect if you’re under the age of 40 you’ll find this confusing, odious, or maybe even a downer.  Nonetheless, it is the truth.  Read it slowly.  Then, read it again.  -MDP-

Despair and Hope by Richard Rohr

Rising and dying are closely related.  Despair, I suspect is another kind of dying and another kind of pain.  It is not so much the loss of persons as the loss of ideals, visions and plans.  For people who hitched their future or their hopes to certain stars, the loss of those stars is bitter and disabling.

It usually happens slowly as we recognize unfulfilled dreams and as we gradually face our own impotence and the “sin of the world” (John 1:29).  We are forced to let go of images: images that we built in our youth, images that solidified and energized our own self-image.  The crash of images is experienced as a death of the spirit, as a loss of hope, as a darkness almost too much to bear.  Many, if not most, become tired and cynical while maintaining the old words that have become cliches even to themselves.

Spiritual growth is the willing surrender of images in favor of True Images.  It is a conversion that never stops, a surrender that never ceases.  It is a surrender of self-serving and self-created images of self, of others, of God.  Those who worship the images instead of living the reality simply stop growing spiritually.  In this light, the First Commandment takes on a whole new power and poignancy:

“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.” (Exodus 20:4-5)

It seems that many people, religious people in particular, would sooner relate to images than to the reality where both despair and God lie hidden.

Until we walk with this despair, we will not know that our hope was hope in ourselves, in our successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection and wholeness should be.  Until we walk with this despair, we will never uncover the real hope on the other side of human achievement.  Until we allow the crash and crush of our images, we will never discover the real life beyond what only seems like death.