Respair

" RESPAIR is the little-known opposite of ‘despair’: a word for a renewed or reinvigorated hope, or a recovery from anguish or hopelessness." Tweeted by the Haggard Hawks account this morning.

The word 'respair' has gone out of common usage but this morning I was introduced to it on Twitter. And it seemed to me that a lot of people are experiencing, in some way, a tiny flicker of hope. That we have - and are still going through - a very dark time for the last while. And today we were given some wee bit of hope.

So I share this word with you and invite everyone to take a deep breath of renewed hope.

We are not done with the dark times.  It is only the barest glimmer of the possibility that what is broken can be mended.

There are people around the world who are still living in the dark times.  We are still dealing with a pandemic, one that has - so far - claimed over 1.2 million (that's 1,200,000+) lives.  And left many more with chronic health issues.

We are still ignoring, for the most part, climate change.

We tend to ignore the inequities that many people are living with, based on superficial things like skin colour, religion, poverty, if we personally are not experiencing them.

If we are to survive the current challenges to human - and all, really - life on this planet, the time to act was 40 years ago.  But better late than never, and we need to act now.

Climate disasters get little airtime, especially if they are happening (waves hand) over there.  But North America has it's own problems with wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and in the north, snowstorms.  High temp numbers have hit historic levels, in both hemispheres, driving drought, killing life, plant and animal.

The Arctic and Antarctic are melting.  In my own life I have seen the Columbia Glacier retreat post haste from where the leading edge used to be to a good kilometer or more away.  This glacier system is the headwaters for the Columbia River.  If it disappears, so will the Columbia.

As a society we need to do better in terms of dealing with marginalized people, be that some form of disability,  mental health, skin colour, religion.  

So yes, there is a tiny glimmer of light today.  Take a moment for a breath of respair.  But we cannot sit back and let the dynamics that have brought us to the point to continue unchecked.

Build a bigger table, not a wall.