We’re inundated with information. From Twitter to Facebook, TV to news outlets, it’s unlikely that you could go all day without hearing about current events. Sometimes I wish I could…

Most days, when I lay down at night, I try and take stock of my self and see where I’m at. And if I’m honest, I’m freakin exhausted. I’m not sure why, but I tend to hold on to things. Death tolls in Gaza, scores of unaccompanied children flooding the U.S. southern border, income disparity in the workplace, Ebola outbreaks in Africa…

Am I going to be able to physically do anything to alleviate the hurt in any of these situations? No.

Does that prevent me from becoming emotionally invested in them? Absolutely not.

How can you have an empathic heart and yet maintain a modicum of separation, so at the very least you don’t burn out, or worse, lose your mind…..?

And then there are moments of respite. A calm stream running through an overgrown forest. An oversized armchair in the middle of a violent tornado.

It’s a bit of Sabbath amidst the hustle and bustle.

I need to be better attuned to these. I need to be more mindful of these moments and just sit in them. Just…be…..

Being hopeful is hard. How can you have hope when everything in your natural environment tells you that there’s nothing to have hope for?

Hope is a really nice platitude, but when it really matters…I mean, when shit gets real and you need something true…hope is often the hardest thing to find.

Hope is necessarily more tangible than I think we give it credit for. Especially as a pastor-to-be, we talk about hope a lot, but I’ve come to wonder what we’re really offering people. Rather than nice thoughts or cheesy aphorisms, can I take on the task of offering something a bit more substantive? More so, can I be a vessel of that hope for people?

Can I hold hope?