where is the hope?

Each year during Advent, the four weeks leading up to the Christian Christmas celebration, I challenge myself to write a column on the four themes of Advent: hope, peace, joy and love. Finding your own thoughts on these subjects and sharing them with readers can be difficult. This week we will be looking at Hope.
What is hope? I thought I knew what hope was, but I decided to look up the dictionary definition. The definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “cherishing desires with anticipation”, that is, wishing for something to happen or to be true. The biblical definition of hope is intertwined with the Judeo-Christian belief system. The church may define hope as “the confident expectation and desire that something good will happen in the future.”
When people talk about hope in a spiritual context, it may mean believing that good things will come from believing in a higher power. For others, it might mean always looking on the bright side and seeing challenges as opportunities.
We have faced increasing challenges as a community over the past few years: environmental crises, a global pandemic, rising homelessness, economic uncertainty, political instability, and the roar of nuclear war. How do you find hope when the future seems bleak?
Here are some suggestions for finding hope during this Advent season.
1) Press pause over time. If you want to find the spirit of hope, you need to stop the busy activities that drown it out. Sit silently for 10 minutes. Take a walk while listening to the sounds of nature. Take a “me” day and allow your body to slow down and relax. “Doing nothing” can be threatening if you are accustomed to going out continuously. Be kind to yourself, take a deep breath and rest.
2) Remember what you are grateful for. No matter how hard things get, there is always something to be grateful for. Developing gratitude is the greatest gift you can give your mind and body. If your “to do” list gets stuck in your head, replace it with a gratitude list. Count your blessings on your fingers as you calmly go to sleep.
3) Limit your intake of “bad news.” In the early days of lockdown 2020, I was obsessed with news about the pandemic. I realized that I was creating anxiety by focusing on situations that I had little control over. I enjoy being ‘knowing’ about local events, but being glued to the news all day didn’t help me deal with the situation. Instead of lying awake, I used the PVR feature of the cable show to record the news. I now only watch the news the next morning when I am more rested and can deal with the stress of “bad news.”
4) Focus on what you enjoy doing. Instead of trying to live one month at a time, as I sometimes do, it’s better to live one day at a time. But it’s also good to anticipate something. It could be a vacation or a family gathering. It could be a concert or a sporting event. Knowing that there is something exciting on the horizon makes it easier to take one step at a time.
5) Talk to prospective people. Sometimes we fall for each other. We complain and we complain. It’s good to vent your frustration, but if the only people you interact with are holding you down, you need to find someone with a positive attitude. It could be a teacher, a pastor.
The world is full of people who can lift your spirits and help you find hope.

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