Tag Archives: Thoreau

Beyond desperation to hope

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“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

What does it mean to you to live a life of quiet desperation? Some think it is absurd to cling to faith, that it is only an illusion, and that there is no meaning in living. Others maintain that the real futility is in living a life without meaning, of choosing despair over hope, of making sure that your song is boldly sung each day and not kept within you.

 

Samantha (Sam) Crawford, the character in the movie Unconditional, lived a great life full of excitement and happiness. But when her circumstances take a tragic twist, she comes to a dead-end and loses her faith and her passion for living. The song in her heart died. About to give up, she encounters two children who lead her to a reunion with her long-lost childhood friend, Joe. Despite his crippling kidney disease ‘Papa Joe’ as the children call him, lives for a higher purpose. Joe had encountered his own share of grief, enduring a prison sentence brought on by his own poor choice. But Joe chose to respond to his redemption by bringing redemption to others. He reaches out to the children in the low-income neighborhood where he lives, teaching and encouraging them. Inspired by Joe Bradford’s true story, Unconditional speaks to how the power of God’s redemptive love for us is magnified when it is shared unconditionally with others.

 

Real life doesn’t always present such stark contrasts. Truthfully, we often live somewhere in between. We say we live by faith but we persistently walk by sight. I wonder how often others might observe our actions and ambitions and conclude that we live with a ‘quiet desperation’, clinging to everything that doesn’t satisfy while the song of true joy is kept hidden within us.

 

How we respond to tragic twists in our circumstances is determined by how we choose to respond to God’s redemptive love poured into our own lives…today.  Don’t live a life of quiet desperation. Let the song of his unconditional love flow from your heart today. Whatever choices have marked your life up until now, today is a new day. Choose well.

 

“Live. Breathe. Find a way to believe. Never give up on hope. Life’s not a dead-end if it takes you somewhere you need to go. Talk to God and find his love. It’s the most powerful thing on earth. There is enough love to go around. All you need to do is share it.” (Excerpts from Unconditional)

 

To be noticed

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P1000626Do you like to have your picture taken? And do you always check the photo to make sure it is a satisfactory rendition of you?

I found it a curious phenomenon when we were playing with the poor children of Las Lomas (Ushpa Ushpa) Bolivia. When the children saw my camera they wanted me to take a picture of them. Some asked to look at the screen picture but most did not. They did not ask for a copy of the picture. It was sufficient to them that a picture was taken. My brother says he found the same response when he did street photography in the USA. Where you might expect to find resistance, hesitation, or suspicion, people instead demonstrated an eagerness to have their picture taken by a stranger they will probably never see again.

And I wondered, how many people of the world do not have a picture of themselves or of their loved ones? How many live, to use Thoreau’s phrase, lives of quiet desperation that go unnoticed, unwitnessed by others? How many go to the grave with an unsung song, a journey walked alone, a dream unrealized?

I think there is this drive to be noticed, to be acknowledged. Not in the sense of, “Look at me. I am so important.” But rather, it’s as if it isn’t enough to live a solitary life, and that we are wired to need a witness to our existence and the meaning of our journey.

I wonder how many people live in the shadows of our own journeys. How many unassumingly blend into the background of our day and are so easily missed by those who pass by? At the grocery store, at church, those whose paths we meet on the sidewalk or in the halls of commerce?

What does it take to witness the journey of another? Affirming others often begins with a smile, a simple, “How’s your day going?,” or a brief compliment.

Make today count. Show others the love of God who sees them where they are. (He sees you where you are too!) Live a life that acknowledges the value of others.