Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the things I’ve noticed about old hymns, especially spirituals, is how much they focus on the life to come.

Peace in the Valley, I Walk in the Garden, When the Rollie Called up Yonder, I’ll Fly Away, In the Sweet By and By, If We Never Meet Again this Side of Heaven, I’m Bound for the Promised Land — the titles go on and on that sing of the promises of Heaven.

You can imagine those singing in fields, those who lost livelihoods, those separated from friends and family by distance or mortality, those in the midst of poverty and war, those held in bondage, those longing to be free — you can imagine their need for a hope bigger than the pain of the day. Amidst unhappy days they sang of timeless joy. It situated their human-scale hurts within the cosmic-scale mercy of God.

That hope led them to sing for their lives. They sang to find a renewed and restored sense of God’s guiding hand. They sang despite it all — despite all the world and its strife. They looked around and couldn’t put them hope in what they could see alone. They had to find a reason to sing of another day, another place, another life to come.

As I watched the news of war, as we emerge from this pandemic, as we see the failures of our political system — it would be easy to lose hope. If our hope were only for this world then we would be the most pitiable of people. Our hope would seem to be in vain.

Yet, those hymns spoke not of humanity’s shortcomings but of God’s limitless love. They call us to focus our hearts and minds on the promise of God’s mercy. Our hope for this life can be found in our capacity to dream of the next. Letting his mercy and love shape ours may yet change the world. We may yet find that there’s hope here and now amid the uncertainties of this life — but it will take us renewing our confidence in the next. With that confidence we may find our voice, our purpose, and true joy.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert