The Big Picture 04: Difficult Hope Out Now!

Issue 04 explores the important topic of Difficult Hope – a phrase borrowed from the acclaimed American writer and agrarian, Wendell Berry. As Istine Rodseth Swart describes in the Editorial, “difficult hope” is “what it looks like when you have no parents and have to flee your war-torn homeland; when the pandemic claims family members, friends, colleagues, your livelihood; when you are the healer, but are afflicted and do not receive healing.”

In every issue of the magazine we want to embody and express many of the ways that Christ is present and playing amidst our everyday life. This couldn’t be more necessary than in our world today where hope is difficult. The articles and art in this issue endeavour honestly to attend to the many difficulties we face, while pointing to hope amidst suffering.

In this issue you will find a wonderful collection of writings including, among many others:

• Craig Bartholomew’s 5 Reasons to Read Wendell Berry Today, which highlights the important voice Berry continues to be in our present age; 
• Reitze Rodseth’s After Difficulty, which powerfully outlines his searing experience as an anaesthesiologist and critical care specialist caring for patients in the height of the pandemic;
• Corli Krohn’s Kingdom Hope and Resilience that explores the contours of what true resilience and hope might look like amidst suffering; 
• Fiona Stewart’s profound poem, When This Is Over;
• Jamie Grant’s Hope in Lament, in which we see the necessity of our practice of lament before God’s face and in his world and how it can lead us to real hope;
• and Deliver Us From Evil: Understanding Vladimir Putin, in which Craig Bartholomew reviews an important recent work on Putin and his regime.

There are many other pieces just as poignant for us today, and we shall highlight more of them in the coming days.