Day 76: Despite Uncertain Times, Choose Optimism

DAY 76

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK ELEVEN: FRIDAY 29 MAY 2020

Despite Uncertain Times, Choose Optimism

“With the endless stream of urgent news pushing the boundaries of our mental health, it seems laughable to suggest optimism right now. Maybe you’re worried about losing your job, losing your home or losing a loved one. Maybe you already have. Maybe you’re worried about your own health, and maybe you feel helpless or doomed … at its core, optimism doesn’t require you to sweep anxious negative feelings under the rug. It’s not about smiling when you don’t feel like it. Optimism is simply being hopeful about the future, even when the present feels wholly negative.” - From a newspaper article 11 May 2020 by the same title

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the order was given that all Japanese, whether foreign born ‘issei’ or those born in America and citizens -‘nisei’, were to be removed from the west coast and placed in what were euphemistically referred to as ‘relocation camps.’ This forced evacuation order with only 48 hour notice saw the loss of farms, homes, businesses and personal possessions. One of these camps was in the middle of the Colorado River Indian Reservation in Arizona, and they remained there until the end of the war in 1945. 

How would you have responded? Assuming the loss of everything they owned, and facing an incarceration of an uncertain duration and an equally uncertain future after they would be released, they planted gardens – beautifully landscaped floral gardens – they made the barren desert around their tar papered army barracks bloom. Only fifteen years after their release I was living in one of those barracks, serving a semester and a summer as a missionary intern on the reservation. It was there that the older Indians spoke to me about the gardens and did so with a sense of awe and amazement at their beauty, gardens now gone except within their memories. Though incarcerated, those Japanese found an optimism during a very uncertain time that echoed Isaiah 35:1, “The desert and the parched land … will rejoice and blossom.” They remain for me an experiential reminder of the choices before us all in difficult times.

Reflective question: Where in this pandemic do you need to intentionally choose optimism?                                                                                                                       

Reflective Scripture: Philippians 4:8 – “… whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, … think about such things.”  

Reflective hymn:

“Higher Ground” – Johnson Oatman (1856-1922)

I’m pressing on the upward way, new heights I’m gaining every day;

Still praying as I’m onward bound, “Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Lord, lift me up and let me stand, by faith on heavens table land;

A higher plane than I have found – Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.