Beneficial - Sept 2024

Verse for September

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15: 13

I heard a programme of Radio 4 recently about toxic positivity. It’s the kind of positivity that pushes aside reality to give a positive angle, even if the context is irredeemably bleak. The programme reflected that it’s not so much ‘seeing the bright side’, or ‘viewing the glass half full’, not so much trying to put a positive spin on something for the sake of the person going through things, as more the fact that the person employing the positivity can’t themselves cope with the pain of the other.

Hope is not toxic positivity. For our hope is grounded in love, and love (we believe) is eternal. Hope isn’t an escape from reality, but an embracing of it. It’s not a denial of pain or anxiousness, but rather a seed within it; which in the silence and presence, offers the harvest of joy and peace.

Rev’d Philip Hawthorn, September 2024