Where Do We Find Our Hope?

A few years ago I was talking with a fellow Quaker dad who was worried about his college-aged daughter. She was emotionally exercised by the challenges of the climate emergency, to the point of depression and a kind of future paralysis. My oldest was about the same age but has never fretted very much about the future. He grew up in scouting, spending considerable portions of his teenage years outdoors, and is keenly interested in nature. He has decided on an environmental sciences career and is clearly ready to be part of the solution.

This contrast in approaches to future disruption is one I think we all face: when should we hope, and when should we worry? What is the source of our faith, and how can it help us find a path between apathy and paralysis? A world in crisis is nothing new. Past civilizations have collapsed from localized climate emergencies, and as a species we’ve inflicted any number of horrific human-created injustices on one another, like chattel slavery and the Holocaust.

We can’t take easy solace by identifying as Friends. Even the relatively short timeline of Quaker history has found us alternately acquiescing to injustice and bravely standing up against it. There have been times in which we’ve averted our eyes from misery, times we embraced it and enriched ourselves, and times in which we helped lead the way to a better world.

Has there ever been an age in human history in which we could be purely optimistic or purely pessimistic? Quaker founder George Fox wrote that his ministry arose “when all my hopes in [preachers and experienced people] were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do.” He famously found inspiration, guidance, and courage in “one, even Christ Jesus,” who could speak to his condition. What keeps us going today in a world always ready to implode or blossom?

When we planned out this issue, we knew that the authors would be writing before a major U.S. election that would likely scramble everyone’s sense of optimism and pessimism. We now have our answer to that question, and the earliest rounds of cabinet nominations indicate we should buckle in for a wild ride.

Friends do not all vote alike, despite the cliches, but then again, many facts remain the same no matter who sits in the U.S. White House. Somewhere in the world, people are being killed by American-made bombs. Cries for justice and mercy are going unheard. Fossil fuels are continuing to spew into the atmosphere (just at different, policy-driven rates). Elections matter, certainly, but our duty and challenges remain consistent: to “speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute; to speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy,” as recorded in Proverbs 31.

Here at Friends Publishing, we hope that the work of our contributors is helping you find ways to steady yourself and be part of the solution. Our goal is to amplify voices of hope and justice and to share stories that will connect and deepen spiritual lives. Across many media, we seek to knit together and grow Friends. Could you help that mission continue by considering a year-end donation? Together we can help shape the world we want our children to inherit.