All religious traditions have at least this in common:
the articulated perception of a gap between what is and what should be;
between reality as actuality and reality as an ideal. ~ Lawrence Cunningham

HOPEFULNESS

When I was young, from time to time my mom would say (to my brothers and sisters, of course, not me): “you’re full of blue mud.” Although a euphemism for a metaphor that was lost on me, I was able to see blue mud in my mind’s eye. What boy doesn’t love mud, and while the wild thought of BLUE mud intrigued and excited me even more, being full of it not so much. But I could imagine and see it as I am certain you can.

So here’s my question. When we are hopeful, what exactly are we full of?

If we can see hope, what does it look like?

Some people suggest that being full of hope is like being full of blue mud. It’s naïve, foolish, a waste of time. Wake up, they say, or grow up. Get a grip. Face reality. These folks maintain hope is a form of escapism. Nothing more than wishful thinking. Hope, they say, is a flight from reality.

Others say hope robs us of the present moment, breeds attachment. They say that to hope is to dwell on a wished-for future. As a result, the future becomes a distraction, if not an obsession. These people insist hope expects a certain end result, anticipates a time when events will turn out better and therefore causes unnecessary and avoidable suffering.

Still, others say to be human is to hope. They say sometimes hope is all that lies between our noses and death. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzche famously remarked, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” The people of this persuasion say sometimes hope is more important than water, than bread. They suggest not to hope is not to be alive or awake or human.

So which is it? Is hope a good thing that enlivens and sustains or a bad thing that perpetuates escapism and kidnaps us from the present moment?

I have been considering and conversing with hope all Advent. First asking, “Are you there?” Then asking, “Are you necessary?” Then asking, “Are you good?” Then asking, “Are you worth the oblation of my life?” I have been listening loudly. To the latter question, I heard something like “there is only one way to find out (I learned hope mumbles).”

These are some of the pensées that have come from my listening and pondering. They are unfinished, still forming, in process, and maybe, in the spirit of hope, always should be so. As a result, this might be considered my first ever “blog post” as opposed to a reflection, essay, or article.

I don’t subscribe to the argument that hope is antithetical to being present in and to the immediate moment. I don’t believe that being present and being hopeful are mutually exclusive. I think genuine hope is rooted in presence. I think genuine presence is inherently hopeful. I do not believe that hope only involves the future or is exclusively oriented to the future (more about this later). Nor do I believe that hope only exists or comes into play in the face of hopeless situations or the temptation to despair.

I fall into the third camp above: to be human is to hope. I also believe that to be a Christian is to be hopeful. I understand hope not merely as a theological virtue but as a deliberate life practice. That means it is both a grace and a conscious and intentional way of being in the world. Sometimes it looks like surrender. Other times it looks like tenacity.

I don’t believe hope is willy-nilly. Some have it, some don’t. Nor do I think people of hope are those who have the most reason or the greatest luxury to be positive. Instead, I see hopeful people as those who have received a Divine gift, taken a human capacity,  and worked it like a muscle. We strengthen our hope by being hopeful.

Positivity is a word I hear a lot these days. Hope is not positivity. Being hopeful is not the same as being optimistic. Optimism accentuates the positive, focuses on it, and looks away from the negative, the tragic, the difficult, or disturbing. Being optimistic is like building a beachfront mansion on sand and when the first storm comes the winds blow and the waves crash and the house falls into the sea.

Hope looks adversity, persecution, misfortune, impasse, or injustice square in the face and dares to trust the hidden ground of love that its life is built on. When we hope, we are not hoping against hope. We are embodying a core conviction, a chosen orientation in life. We’re hoping for and trusting in the foundational and truest truth of life, not only theologically but existentially. That is, love is the greatest power in the universe. Love is the strongest and most enduring truth, the sole reality on which it is worth constructing and reconstructing one’s life despite any and all evidence to the contrary.

Hope is grounded in the conviction that there is an uncreated, vivifying reality (G-d, Spirit, the More, etc.) that runs through the universe, animates and sustains it, that is the origin of all and the destination of all—the Alpha and the Omega. Though impossible to see, it is a truer, more beautiful, and eternal truth than any other visible or invisible reality. In the end, as it was in the beginning, I believe, it is the only reality. The only truth.