Inconvenient Hope

Vinyl records are an inconvenient medium for listening to music, but that's precisely why I love them so much.

There's something special about the tactile connection—placing the record on the platter, positioning the tonearm, and setting the speed. I can't move around while the record plays since the heavy hobble of my left foot makes our wood floors bounce, causing skips. So, listening to a record requires me to be still and present… and I like it. I feel like I get to really hear the music. This morning, that inconvenient wonder felt like a grace I could hold in my hands as I sat still in my favorite corner of the couch with one dog at my feet and the other by my side. As side one of Joel Ansett’s latest record spun, I felt seen, loved, known, and free. It was good to feel not alone.

I’ve felt lonely a lot recently.

I get lost and isolate myself in all the bad news. There has been a lot lately, and sometimes I catch myself scrolling through headlines deep into the night, each one heavier than the last. It's exhausting and lonely, and I often need something or someone to snap me out of the trance-like hold the doom and gloom headlines have over me. I don’t need a false narrative of a shiny, happy universe or pith and platitude. Sometimes, I need a melancholy record spinning on the turntable and a good cup of coffee to wake me from my trance. But mostly, I need a voice that speaks with clarity, truth, honesty, and love.

This is precisely what Jesus offers to the people in Luke 21. To a world buried under the weight of distress, confusion, and fear, Jesus says, "Stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near." It's not a dismissal of their challenges but an invitation to see something more.

Yes, there are signs everywhere of a world falling apart. Jesus acknowledges this reality. The headlines scream it daily. But simultaneously, God is making all things new, and there are signs of that, too. Spotting the first robin or spring shoot breaking through the frozen ground are signs of the new life I know to look for as this now infant winter eventually enters its twilight months from now. It will be a long, cold season, but even now, spring is waiting patiently for its rebirth. Even as the damp wind makes brittle my Florida-born bones, the signs of life I’ve learned to notice sustain my hope that spring will come again. Spring will come again, and I will be ready.

Until then, life doesn’t slow down. Sometimes, the blows keep coming. Life piles on, and Jesus directs (again in Luke 21) to "be on guard" - not in an anxious, hypervigilant way, but by staying devoted to Jesus and the way of love. In a world dead set on drawing lines and pushing people away, what if I simply loved my neighbors as myself? What if I could be a sign of life for someone buried in distress, confusion, and fear?

The world is a mess, but Jesus isn't.
The world is crumbling, but God's kingdom will stand forever.
So, I want to keep looking up, loving, and being a sign of hope.
I want to stay devoted to cultivating life wherever I find it, knowing that while winter feels endless, spring always comes.

I think this is what it means to follow Jesus—not ignoring life's hardships but refusing to let them have the final word. Even as the world falls apart, God is making everything new. God is even making me new.

So, today, as my record spins, I choose to look up.

As I get up from the couch and begin the day, I will be on guard, looking for signs of life.

And I will stay devoted to the way of love in this world.