yet
After attempting unsuccessfully to share her screen and mute several exuberant Kindergarteners, Teacher Krause put her finger in the air and declared firmly, “I’m sorry boys and girls, Mrs. Krause hasn’t figured out how to do this . . . yet. But I will learn it.”
YET?
She asserted this word such chutzpah it startled me. Not one to ever spend more than 22 seconds on a tech problem before running to my 9-year-old for help, I didn’t understand the confidence. . . yet there it was.
Yet.
I decided right then and there that in contexts like these, “yet” and her sisters “nevertheless,” “however,” and “in spite of,” could possibly be the most hopeful words in the English language. These words herald that all is not lost, the story isn’t finished, and a better part is coming. “Yet” connotes that, assuredly and eventually, circumstances willactually change in the future and becomes shorthand for “HOPE with the confident expectation success WILL happen”.
It’s faith.
But, in these modern times when the odds stack against us, getting to and actually trusting the “yet” seems daunting. Not only are we dealing with literal viruses, “a 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand [that have brought] populations and global economies to their knees. . . .” we also encounter heinous figurative “viruses” such as hunger, poverty, school shootings and “racial, ethnic, [and] religious prejudice.” (Holland, Waiting on the Lord, October 2020) And as if that weren’t crushing enough, our personal lives, ever brewing and boiling below us, leave us hoping for relief from broken marriages, broken hearts, broken promises, broken sobrieties, broken progress, broken spirits, and broken peace. We come to our anxieties honestly; they abundantly splay themselves across all aspects of our lives and it’s easy to lose hope or to cry, as religious leader Jefffery Holland says the ancient Israelites moaned, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost.” But we must not! He writes:
“Indeed, if we finally lose hope, we lose our last sustaining possession. It was over the very gate of hell that Dante wrote . . . ‘Abandon all hope,’ he said, ‘ye who enter here.” Truly when hope is gone, what we have left is the flame of the inferno raging on every side . . . . God does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds. . . We all need to believe that what we desire in righteousness can someday, someway, somehow, yet be ours.” (emphasis mine and quotes are taken out of order here)
But…getting to “yet” requires active keystrokes—it ain’t gonna happen by passively hoping the zoom kindergarteners will mute themselves. And when endeavoring hope, we must shake the temptation to pretend that those looming odds aren’t, in fact, insurmountable tsunamis of obstacles when indeed they are. But what’s the mechanism that goads us to jump on that surfboard to ride out the tidal wave of obstacles in efforts to attain “yet”?
In practical terms, how do we actually execute “yet”?
As Holland references, we DON’T do it through, “a thin gruel of therapeutic deism [or] cheap symbolic activism”—soulless, empty words that change nothing, do harm, and give no relief. We don’t do it by pretending that the odds are good, that the pain isn’t searing, the suffocation isn’t real, or that positive pep talks can solve the problem. No. Instead, relief is born through sure belief it will happen, boldly facing odds that have been stacked against you, and taking action to bring the hope yet to come. And in my opinion, doing so requires one massive essential underlying principle implicit in hope/yet:
METTLE.
Mettle is a word that should be used more with its correct spelling because its meaning is more than just a synonym for grit or tenacity, traits that need to be found outside a person’s being to be utilized. Instead, according to Webster, mettle suggests more of an inner ability or an “ingrained capacity for meeting strain or difficulty with fortitude and resilience.” Mettle, then, is part of who the person is within their being so that all that needs to be done to draw upon its power during trial is to clutch its throat with both fists and call it forth (https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mettle).
Etymologically speaking, its roots come from where you would expect—metal. In fact, going back to the 1500s, “metal” and “mettle” were used interchangeably so it's no surprise that mettle conjures up images of steely resolve, iron will, and titanium strength—all metaphors/descriptors of a soul’s inner traits.
And just as the durability of metal does not fail to perform, neither does that of one’s own ever present, proven mettle. Though always within, it can’t be perceived to others until observable opposition barges in and action needs to be taken. Mettle arrives at the wedding party simultaneously with the drunk uncle and wrestles him until he’s rendered incapable of ruining the bride’s day. It is mettle that will herald yet, mowing the chaos, baling the weeds, then paving a path to roll out the crimson carpet for yet.
And when that carpet is unfurled, what walks down the aisle with mettle?:
LOVE.
When coupled with mettle and love, the arrival of YET is simply a given. YET simply is guaranteed; it cannot fail.
Love for others. Love for self. Love for the greater good. Love for the outlier. Love for wounded (even if the wounded outlier is yourself). Love for God. Love for love’s own sake. If you are hoping for something and the hope is a just one, love should always undergird the motivation.
Mettle is what gets you there. Love is the motivation. Mettle is the vehicle. Love is the fuel. Mettle is how you execute the hero’s journey. Love is manna God provides along the way to nourish you. Mettle is the muscle. Love is the mama panther that makes you use those muscles to run toward danger to protect your cubs.
Some describe this love as Godly or Divine Love—this type of transcendent loving in meaningful ways brings about the hope yet to come.
So now our equation can look like this:
FAITH + METTLE + LOVE= HOPE YET
There are two fitting examples that clearly articulate this loving pathway to hope, to “yet”—Harriet Tubman (the American abolitionist) and Parable of the Good Samaritan. In both of these examples we see Holland’s aforementioned “viruses”—racism, violence, illness, oppression, injury, crushing disappointments, extreme familial challenges, “insurmountable odds” and overcoming what “seemed utterly impossible” to hope against hope for a liberation and victorious “yet.” But both also show textbook examples of our equation: FAITH + METTLE + LOVE= HOPE YET.
Harriet Tubman, the diminutive, 5’ 2”, uneducated, southern slave with a debilitating head injury, had the audacity to hope inspite of her grim circumstances . “I grew up like a neglected weed,” she said, “ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it” (Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855). Her only wish was to be free as she asserted, “Slavery is the next thing to hell.” (Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855):
“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me." (Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford in Harriet, The Moses of Her People, 1886)
Her heart was set and she did gain her freedom, running by herself for over 100 miles from Maryland to Philadelphia. Her faith in God and with His guidance, she returned to the south 19 times and freed over 300 slaves singing the spirituals Go Down Moses and Bound For the Promised Land (links below) changing the tempo of the songs to indicate whether or not it was safe to come out (Harriettubmanbiography.com). “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger” (Harriet Tubman at a suffrage convention, NY, 1896).
Harriet Tubman had faith in the yet and acted with love. She was relentlessly hopeful. She acted “without question” out of love and faith. Her people weren’t free . . . yet. . . but, her heart resolute, she trusted God and with His help, committed to being His hands on the earth and DOING something. From the film:
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do! I made it this far on my own! God was watchin’, but my feet was my own - runnin’, bleedin’, climbin’, nearly drowned - nothin’ to eat for days and days. And I made it! So, don’t you tell me what I can’t do. You don’t know me!”
The second example of hope in action is a parable you probably know well, The Good Samaritan. A lawyer presses Jesus to define what constituted the “neighbor” he was morally responsible for. Jesus answers with this parable—a man travels on the road that runs from the Holy City of Jerusalem to Jericho. Called “the Red Path” because of its reputation for bloody and violent robberies, travelers would rarely travel alone on the road to Jericho. But this traveler made the mistake of traveling solo and as a consequence, was robbed and left for dead. Meanwhile a Samaritan, a half Jew, half Syrian (and therefore ethnically and religiously inferior to this man), travels the road, actively searching for ANYONE in peril and was prepared to help with oil and rations in hand. He finds the half dead man and as the scripture say,
“had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke10 33-34).
The Samaritan pays for his shelter and rehabilitation and goes on his way, probably looking for others he can serve. The Samaritan was hope on feet. He was an active healer for better days yet to come. He was:
FAITH + METTLE + LOVE= HOPE YET
Holland’s words are not passive. They are action driven. He says:
“. . . in an effort to thank my Father in Heaven . . . I have ‘promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.’ May we press forward with love in our hearts, walking in the ‘brightness of hope’ that lights the path of holy anticipation . . . . We have every reason to hope [yet] for blessings even greater than those we have already received. . . “ (Holland, Jeffrey R. April Conference, 2020 Emphases mine).
During these harrowing times, if we muster the strength to act in love as ministers for those in need and embrace the philosophy of Teacher Krause, Kindergarteners will be muted, wounds will be bound, and hope will be found . . . YET!
