We have all witnessed the transforming power of hope—the focus and sustenance hope provides when strength and reason fail to pull us through a difficult situation. Facing tragedy and loss, hope is often the only thing standing between us and the void. Life-threatening illnesses or injuries provide some of the most poignant occasions for hope. We hope that a loved one will survive a critical surgery. We hope that cancer will respond to chemotherapeutic drugs. We hope, often against all odds, that this time, for this one precious and irreplaceable person, death will be thwarted and life will go on.
When medical science offers no legitimate hope for a cure, desperation and grief can drive people to grasp at any straw that might offer hope to them or to their loved ones. For many, herbal medicine or other “alternative” therapies become the vehicle for hope when medical science has done all it can do. For others, hope comes from beyond the realm of medicine. Faith often takes up at the limits of hope, to turn the eyes of the desperate to the source of all life, all hope, and all salvation. Facing death with dignity requires us to accept our mortality and find peace beyond the hope possible in this world.
