Searching for Advent in Times Like These: hope
As Advent begins, a chorus from a Bruce Springsteen song is echoing in my mind.
Glory days, well they’ll pass you by
Bruch Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., “Glory Days.” (Columbia Records) 1984.
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days
In times like these what are you hoping for? Does it have something to do with the glory days of your memories? Maybe it is about a time to come when, (fill in the blank), becomes a new reality or old ways rise up again.
Maybe its something that gets you out of bed to put on a brave face and go out into the day.
Is it the routine. It’s what you or people like you do.
Is it your identity or an identifying quality of you.
When I pass someone begging on one of the corners in Tulsa, I wonder what they are hoping for? How many times have they told that story? What has changed? But, I don’t stop and ask. Here is my dollar or spare change. I trust that helps you today.
I don’t know if I’m being Hope for others, but I’m searching for advent. I’m searching for a hope that’s not algorithm compiled, TikTok influenced, Tweet-able, auto-tuned, or personalized. A hope that is not a consumable, doesn’t cater to my needs, my desire, nor trying to control me because of its need for power. A hope that can’t solve my problem or protect me, but grounds me in the source of my being for this day of living. A hope that makes a “well rounded outcast out of me.”
A hope that encourages me to live, give, and love again. And again. And again. And again.
Springsteen’s song, along with Billy Joel’s “these are the Times to Remember,” has come to mean more and more as time has moved along. Thanks–