How Is There Hope In A Fascist Fog?

Field notes on January 28:

Yesterday, tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed northward in Gaza, by foot, to their former homes, now rubble.

Yesterday, thousands gather in Auschwitz to listen to the 80 year-old stories of darkness and death.

I sing a hymn daily. Aloud, A cappella, because I need to hear it. I need breadth as well as depth in my choice of song, so I let another[i] chose for me. Yesterday’s was “Restore In Us, O God.” I did not know it, but sang it anyway. My eye moved to the hymn on the contiguous page. Now there’s one I know and oh my, did I need to sing it: “Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow.” Sing it I did. “Through the night of doubt and sorrow, onward goes the pilgrim band.”

How do I best mobilize with others?

How is there hope in my heart when I know there is not supernatural intervention by God while lessons learned from destroyed persons and dwellings in Gaza and Israel and death camps in Eastern Europe are forgotten in a fascist fog blanketing America?

Field notes on January 31:

How is there hope?

I also need breadth as well as depth in my choice of daily Scripture, so I let another[ii] chose for me that as well. Today includes Psalm 71 and I glimpse, I hear, I listen to an answer and take it to be true because it is too good not to be true: “For you are my hope, O Lord God, my confidence since I was young.”

[i] Bread For The Day 2025: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers (Augsburg Fortress, 2024). Hymns chosen from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2006)

[ii] Revised Common Lectionary