Got a lovely bunch of Coconuts, anybody?

If you have ever gone wandering along a tropical beach with palm trees, you may have been told not to sit under a palm tree because more people die from falling coconuts than from shark attacks.  That, however, is an urban legend and an exaggeration.  But sitting under a coconut tree can be hazardous to your health.  No one knows the time or day when a coconut falls, and the comparison to sharks started when an emergency room doctor complained about all the injuries he was treating due to falling coconuts.  It created so much kerfuffle that someone wrote a very cheeky song called “Killed by a Coconut”, which is almost as silly as the song “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” which if you don’t know it is very similar to “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”. 

Sometimes I feel like hope is just as silly as singing about coconuts and hippopotami.  Our scripture readings don’t seem very hopeful either.  And the news these days discourages a hopeful attitude. Who can be hopeful when their power is off because of bombs or they’ve lost family and friends in a nightclub shooting or they have had to wait for an ambulance for hours and then wait in a hospital for a doctor for more hours.

It’s easy to lapse into apathy when our lives are full of such stories.   It’s also easy to fall into the opposite extreme, anxiety.  Will this time be when the flood comes, or the heat wave or the hurricane or the forest fire? Or just assume that every day will be filled with disaster and there’s nothing that we can do to prevent it?  A third alternative is cynicism, the assumption that nothing good will ever happen.  A lot of conversations start with words like “Don’t”, “I can’t”, “We mustn’t”, “That won’t work”, “We tried that once”, or “no”.  Like a tire that has a slow leak, cynical words can completely deflate us until we feel flat, apathetic, cynical or anxious.  If we internalize all those words, that can lead to serious depression.  The negative, cynical, apathetic, anxious thoughts can become self-destructive mental illness that requires professional help to unravel.  There were times when I needed to reach out to counsellors to improve my mental health, but for many in our world, this is a constant struggle that needs medical and professional support.  Which is in short supply these days.  Social workers are facing the same challenges this year as doctors and nurses did during covid, a rise in demand and in workload.  Burn out, retirement, and a health system that does not fund mental health programs consistently or predictably mean uncertainty for both professionals and those who need the programs.  PRAAC, who raises money to fund thrive workers to help people experiencing family violence, depends on government support as well as our fundraising and organizations like Together Talk have to apply for grants to provide free mental health care on one hand but also struggle to get the message out to people that the service exists and it’s okay to ask for help.  People who have hope are more likely to ask for that help than those without hope.

At our yarn circle we asked the question, “what is hope and how does it differ from wishful thinking?”  Wishful thinking is imagining things will work out the way I want without any effort on my part and may involve an exaggerated hope or fanciful thought.  A ten year old can wish for a real live pet unicorn all they want, but they are not going to get one.  A twenty year old can work in a stable to earn enough to buy a pony that they call ‘Unicorn’ and dress it up with a pointed hat.  One is wishful thinking, based in fantasy, the other is based in the real world and with hard work will come true.  But even better than these two examples is the twenty year old taking her pony to the Stollery Hospital and giving sick children rides on her ‘unicorn’.  That is Christian hope.  It comes from thinking of others, and being alert to opportunities to serve our neighbors. 

When Christ said ‘stay ready and alert for no one knows the day’, that is hope – alert and brave and focused on a better future.  Not afraid to face the reality of shoveling manure to get a unicorn.  And Christian hope is also about being honest about the challenges that life throws at us.  We will see disasters, but we are to keep looking and preparing for Christ’s coming. 

The challenge is discerning what is wishful thinking and what is hopeful thinking.  After several days of rain this week, rain in Alberta in November, global warming is becoming more tangible.  Some think it’s wishful thinking to imagine lowering our dependence on petroleum products, and slam environmentalists for such ideas.  Better do nothing than make a baby step towards change.  Yet one person’s wishful thinking is another person’s hope.  It was wishful thinking to imagine the USSR would stop being communist, wishful thinking that the Berlin Wall would come down, wishful thinking that Northern Ireland would be at peace, that apartheid in South Africa would end, that the slave trade would end or that we could have a truth and reconciliation process in Canada, to name a few.  One person’s wishful thinking is another person’s call to hope.  One person may see a coconut as a dangerous weapon, but another person will see it as a fruit that despite its hard shell and brown exterior, is worth the effort of cracking open.  And when we crack that hard nut, we too can be nourished in ways that inspire hope in others.  We are called to choose hope and to work for hope.  Researchers at the U of A in Edmonton are finding that hope impacts our physical health as well as our mental health.  Hope can heal relationships and the world with God being our helper.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful gift!