This Joyful Uncertainty

Reflect on resistance as a call to joy, sadness and doubt as an invitation to deeper faith.

The world seems to be falling apart, and we often feel helpless and afraid, but in these hopeful reflections, deacon and poet Chris Anderson says, all shall be well. The violence and injustice all around us are a call not only to action, but to joy. Our own uncertainty, our own sadness and doubt, invite us to deeper freedom and faith.

In This Joyful Uncertainty, Anderson draws on Dante, Hopkins, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, Pope Leo XIV, and many others to discern God’s presence in our lives, and in the lives of the poor, suffering, outcast, and oppressed. He urges us to do whatever we can to stand against evil and then to leave the rest to God—living each moment with humility, confidence, and hope—accepting joy or grief or just the quiet rhythms of ordinary things. Scripture says, “be not afraid.” God is with us always, even when things are falling apart—and especially then.

Chris Anderson is a Catholic deacon, poet, and retired professor of English living in Corvallis, Oregon. He is the author of fifteen books, including academic books, books of personal essays, and three books of poetry.