This past Sunday I borrowed the title from one of Nick Cave’s songs: “Push the Sky Away.” Cave says of the song, “We all have this feeling of the world folding in on us. Whether it’s environmental, the economy, nuclear or whatever. I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who is walking around thinking everything is okay. So to me, there’s this idea that we need to carry on and do what we do. The song is optimistic in that respect. Of course it’s impossible to push the sky completely away but we need to try…Reject the relentless promotion of despair. Open your eyes to the beauty of things. View the world not as it is packaged, presented, and sold to us but as we imagine it could be. We do not look away from the world, we look directly at it and allow the spirit of hope – this necessary driver of change – to inspire us to action. This is our radical and audacious duty.”

I added these words of my own: “My heart is broken these days. Some of my loved ones are living in perpetual fear of deportation – their long-time, legal protections have been eroded and undermined. They could disappear into a country they have never lived in – and it could happen any moment. I am sick unto death of seeing starving children in Gaza – weaponized starvation that is 100% intentional. I am exhausted by seeing bloodied bodies in Ukraine and Russia, stacking up like firewood. I am appalled at the apathy of so, so many who just shrug their shoulders and who will not employ their voice, their resources, or their witness to alleviate the suffering around them – so long as their mutual funds are getting a good return.

“I am humiliated by my own religious tradition. It’s a tradition that long ago sold out to wage the culture war and surrendered the essentials of love, justice, mercy, and humility. I am shocked that we think all our problems are due to policies and people at the top – when it’s our own crooked hearts and crooked ways that create a society. I am torn to pieces by platformed and applauded hatred that surrounds us. I am deflated by the fact that all I have just said will be criticized and picked apart. And I am at a complete loss for how any of this can be changed, assuaged, relieved, or amended. But God as my witness, I will always have hope, and always attempt to defy demoralization.

“For if I lose hope – I have lost the very vitality of my present life and given up on the possibility of a more loving future – for myself, and all who will come after me. Without hope, I can only leave my children, my grandchildren, and their children nothing but despair. This I refuse to do. I cannot allow myself to surrender to cynicism; I refuse to accept the status quo as the best we can do; I still believe that love is the greatest force in all the universe; and I believe that there will always be people of goodwill who will follow Jesus, love their neighbor, and who quietly will not capitulate or bend the knee to the tyranny of public opinion. My heart might be broken – but maybe that is required. Brokenness allows the hope within to spill out into a world that needs all the hope it can get.”