life after love

i sit in lectures, cafeterias and coffee shops in which apathy is the prevailing tone. and i can hear the hurt behind so many cool and disaffected voices as the people get up to leave. there is a serious lack of purpose at this campus.

so this is the liberty we've come to know - that nothing could possibly matter less than our actions, inactions and empty rhetoric; that we are pathetically helpless in our quest for meaning, that we are weak and incapable in our empty strivings, and that we are small and flailingly ineffectual when put in perspective.

we've all been through a bad break-up. we've all been addicted or lonely, used-up or forgotten, broken and/or phony. hard situations have provided the context for even harder decisions. sometimes it is only natural to accept defeat. our failures can lead us to question why we tried so hard - to succeed, to prevail, to do the right thing - in the first place.

the mystery is not why people give up when faced with heart-crushing circumstances. on the contrary, the wonder is that we're still alive.

we are told by friends that things will be fine, that we're just having a hard time and that (chin up!) this will all blow over soon. deep down, we all know that blind optimism is a scam. worse than the original depression, a false promise for the future can destroy what remaining sense of security and well-wishing we still harbored within us. an old jewish proverb says that "hope deferred makes the heart sick."

please don't listen to that trash. hold out for something more reliable, for Someone who really knows the future. i will submit that optimism is a fool's errand and hope is his calling. maybe God has a purpose for people, and He hasn't completely abandoned us to our circumstances.

why? i can't tell you for certain. but listen, and maybe you'll connect with something greater as well. maybe hope really doesn't disappoint. take care what you wish for, and even more what you hope in. as ever,

joel