Reflections On HopeSýnishorn

I have just read the book “Nomadland” by Jessica Bruder, which has also been made into a documentary film. This is a warm, sad, hopeful, scary depiction of old age in America, following the great financial crash of 2008. Thousands of older, retired people have lost their homes and many more have chosen to leave them and spend life on the road in caravans, house-buses, and RVs. They earn their petrol money and meagre living expenses being exploited at below-liveable wages by Amazon in its massive warehouses, and in beet harvesting and other casual work. They migrate around the USA based on seasonal work availability.

The hopeful and warm part of the book is seeing the resilience, initiative, and comradeships of the human spirit in many of these people, whom the author spent years befriending and following. Most of them consider themselves “houseless” rather than “homeless” and their communal identity is with others in the same situation.

The sad and scary part is to realise that they represent many people who have been left behind, people who have nowhere to go in their old age but the road ahead, and no one to look after them but themselves.

Isaiah 46:3-4 gives the people of God the hope and assurance of the never-ending love and care of an almighty God. From birth to “old age and grey hair” this God has carried, nurtured, cared for us, and promises always to do so. If the greatness of a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members, then God is the inspiration and model of the very best of the best. Our divine midwife and old-age caregiver never grows weary of supplying all that life needs, promising to sustain and to rescue those he has brought into being.

I have made, and I will bear.

I will carry and will save.