Resignation & Hope... Easter & Esther

After a long - somewhat embattled - conversation with a friend about a current work situation, he had a piece of wisdom to offer: "Whatever the right way to handle this situation is, the one thing you cannot do is give in to resignation." He's right. I have felt recently as if a blanket of despair were draped over me. I'm not sure that despair is the right word, though - resignation is a better description. It feels so difficult to keep hoping - believing - working towards things that seem impossible: true reconciliation in relationships, escape from the sin that I'm tangled up in, radical transformation. Resignation is washed down with the bitter humor of cynicism and enables the apathy that answers the nagging question "should I be doing something about this?". It gets me out of praying, out of speaking the truth when it's hard, out of continuing to care when it hurts (a lot!). It numbs me to life so that I can simply go through the motions. It's so much easier to resign myself. Hope takes so much energy, so much emotion, so much elbow grease. Especially since, unlike the rose-colored glasses of optimism, hope must acknowledge reality - the problems are even bigger than I think, not smaller, and it is impossible from a human perspective. What's more, God's work of reconcilation, transformation and resurrection seems to happen too late and much more painfully than I would like. The cross seems like such an inappropriate symbol of hope - but there you have it.

So Esther wants more of a mention in my blog: Esther is my friend who's a freshman at UW-Madison, a fabulous artist & photographer, talented writer, third-culture-kid and an all around odd woman. You can see why we get along so well :) One of her favorite past-times is taking strange pictures of herself with my phone and camera. Here is a sampling of her work: