hope

Guarding our Hearts

· February 25, 2025 · Uncategorized · , , · One Comment

I was wandering around the internet (as one does) searching for… something. I have no idea what it was, except that it wasn’t important. No doubt it was one of those marvelous rabbit holes I go down that begins with a serious inquiry and likely work-related and ends up leading me to Jennifer Anniston’s favorite salad recipe. Again.

I may not recall what I was looking for, but the journey itself was marked with anxiety, fear, and profound sadness. Every side quest resulted in finding news about decisions made in the Oval Office that are already significantly impacting our world.

And I thought COVID was frightening.

Amidst all the news that seemed just this side of apocalyptic I ran across someone who was writing about prayer. She said that she prayed not to change the will of God, but rather to guard her heart. I don’t recall that this was tied up in the “whole armor of God” sort of thing, but rather a sense that prayer helped her remain true to who she felt she was called to be.

That phrase has followed me for the last week. It’s crept under my skin and is slowly making a home in my spirit. I need to guard my heart.

I don’t interpret this as putting up a wall between myself and the rest of the world – using my privilege to prevent me from feeling the pain and the needs around me. Instead, I hear these words (I feel these words!) cautioning me to not allow my heart to be hardened by all that is occurring – not to be overcome by it all.

I think that when I pray for others and for this world, I am guarding my heart by reminding myself that I am not alone in my worries and concerns. Prayer is an incredible reminder to me that I am not alone. We are not alone.

The book of Proverbs (part of what is aptly known as Wisdom literature) offers this suggest: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:22). This calls to mind all the other ways in which I guard my heart: I write. I move. I knit. I sing. In a few short weeks I will once again pretend to garden.

I will guard my heart so there continues to be hope within it and love within it, because that is the most powerful resistance to evil that I know of.

And we must resist.

Reclaiming Hope.

· February 3, 2025 · Uncategorized · , , , · 3 Comments

If you know me, you know that 2024 was a hot mess. If anything could be broken; be it a leg, a heart (miss you, Dad), or any number of plans… it wasn’t just broken, but shattered. Sort of like Humpty Dumpty after the fall. Or the most stereotypical country song. 

You know, bleak.

Despite all that went wrong (rotten floors in the cabin, dead laptop, ceiling leak in the bathroom) I was able to still laugh. Honestly, I still feel this surge of gratitude whenever I remember that there were a couple of times on this journey when it looked like I wasn’t going to make it, and yet for some reason, here I am.

I kept waiting for despair to set in, or that nihilistic sense that everything was for nothing, and that waking up in the morning simply wasn’t worth it. That time never came. 

Well, not until January 20th.

What has followed has been wave after wave of grief. Despair – because I’ve worshipped alongside immigrants and asylum seekers who have taught me what it means to trust in God. Or perhaps because I’ve known federal employees on various levels of government who cared deeply for the work they did, as well as the country they served. I feel despair in remembering how I’ve danced at the weddings of trans folx, and I’ve officiated at same-sex marriages and know that Love is Love (but apparently hate is also hate). I grieve what has happened in the last few weeks, and fear what is yet to come as the powers that be strive to Make America White Again.

The despair I avoided last year now invades my dreams and decimates my hope, but, $#&*(@, I didn’t live through last year to give in now to despair. I’m reclaiming my hope. 

  1. I’m focusing my time and energy locally. There is nothing I can do at this juncture to repair what is occurring on the national/global level. My own backyard is a different story.
  2. I’m limiting my intake of news – a summary in the morning (thanks, NPR/Up First and 440) and a quick read of the local stories in our city’s paper.
  3. I’m shopping locally. Period.
  4. As much as I love keeping in contact with folks on FB, IG, and Threads… I dislike giving money via ad revenue to Meta. I’m done. Find me at SubStack and Bluesky (Rabbitridge) unless they also join the sycophant parade. I’ll be deleting my accounts in the next few days.

I know the above may come off as virtue-signaling, but my purpose in sharing this is to encourage those who feel despair to find something (anything) that can make a difference where you are… and to keep being who YOU are. 

Thanks for taking time to read this rant. I’m grateful for the incredible people whose lives have somehow become intertwined with mine, and if you’re reading this… that means you. – Karen

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