A dark and deadly time for Israel—
its world turned upside down:
Shameless leaders enslaved or slaughtered,
the strongest deported,
the weakest abandoned.
Strangers in a foreign land
or exiles in their own.
When things could not be worse,
when hope runs out, when people are convinced
that God has forgotten them and has looked away.
We have not experienced their trauma of exile,
the terror of war, the horror of genocide or conquest.
Their despair is not our despair.
Ours is a more sinister darkness, a more pervasive gloom:
alienated and separated as we are
not by the sword or invasion,
but by more sinister demons--
our world turning upside down.
Is there for us any dimension of life
not under siege,
not stressed to the breaking point?
The poisoning of the earth,
the rebellion of the climate,
the torrent of refugees and exiles and immigrants,
the epidemic of guns and of routine slaughters in our land.
Drifting further from harmony,
from unity, from solidarity.
Hope that runs out,
fear that swamps us.
We know darkness and despair Israel could not have imagined.
In our day, in our hearts, we too cry out,
Is the Lord with us or not?
To those exiles shrouded in darkness,
these anonymous, wise poets wrote a bold, courageous word:
that when all seems lost,
God our surprising God REMEMBERS
and brings light out of darkness,
hope out of despair,
new beginnings out of the wreckage of human lives.
Their vision for Israel of
a glorious return,
decisive intervention by God,
miracles all around.
The reality, though, was barely glorious.
Some exiles did return,
but not independence or wealth.
It was not the hills that were brought low,
but the pride of the people,
the arrogance of the rulers,
the excesses of the temple.
But who cares if the VISIONS and the REALITY did not match?
They seldom do.
The stirring images of God who intervenes, who sets free,
who reverses fortunes,
fired the imagination and rekindled hope.
These words created hope,
and hope always creates POSSIBILITIES!