hope.
on the absurd nature of that which resides and resonates within me: hope.
i don’t quite understand what it is inside of me that allows, what pretense might call a defect and faith might call a virtue, for me to continue in the overwhelming shadow of hope that looms constantly on my day-to-day experience. it is truly the ineffable. the enigma. the that which cannot be known or explained away by a book, doctrinal statement, or professor’s lecture. i, myself, do not possess the cognitive faculties to comprehend what it is that feeds this hope or causes it to be sustained within me, body and soul. and since i cannot point to it directly i am limited to drawing your attention to a few specific indirect actions and ideas that seem to flow from and through this anomaly.
i know it is usually standard practice for one to present a definition for whatever form they are trying to discuss further in depth, but seeing as how i have already stated that hope is ineffable and can only be approached indirectly, that is to say in analogy, it is light that can only be viewed by reflection and refraction. with that being said, along with my apologies and requests for your pardon, i will continue on.
example one: the paradox of ‘the hope of/for the hopeless.’
the paradox is that occurence which intrigues me to no end, being something of a deeper truth buried within a shallow ground of untruth. in the case of hope it takes the form of those who, despite their situation and circumstance still live with the expectant desire for improvement to change their existence. the starving children in far-off economically-underdeveloped countries who are photographed wearing such glowing smiles and brilliantly illuminated dirty faces while kicking a soccer ball and playing within their own respective communities. the poor south american worker travelling in search of employment in order to provide the basic survival needs for those loved ones of his family. working rigorously and to no end with the dream-like wish that his children will have a better life than he. there is no cure in this hope. it does not improve his own life in any direct way. it does not provide the food his body needs. the love his soul needs. the air his lungs require. hope fulfills no real tangible ‘need’ that we possess. it does not satiate any physical desire or cater to fantasy. yet, hope is a cause, however indirect it may seem, of an abundant life. a life lived and however hard or strenuous, a life enjoyed.
example two: the transcendent idea of expectant desire.
many people proclaim that this is it. c’est la vie. ‘nothing happens when you die.’ the earth is. it could not be better and it could not be worse. and while i agree with that statement on certain theological levels and the philosophical abstraction of ‘free will,’ hope transcends this ‘reality’ with the dream and expectant desire of a reality made better. note that i did not remark on the dream of a ‘perfect’ world. though people do long for that utopian state and hope for it to come about, i believe that the time for that has not yet come and as of now it is quite neccesary for this world not to be perfect, because perfection eliminates hope. a good example of this transcendent idea is its motivation in the human will to go about proactive in the mission of global restoration and repair. it is the hope that we can change the world that fuels our efforts to do just that. it is the expectant desire we have that when we act, the world will be made better. there is no logical basis to believe that committing even the most obscure act of random kindness is the answer to all of the world’s problems, but it is indeed a start. another example, on a more practical and simplistic level might include the small child who dreams of becoming an astronaut or a firefighter or a veterinarian. there is no reason to logically conclude that just because they have the ‘hope’ of this becoming true that it shall pass. the hope serves, yet again, as motivation to spark and inspire one on to achieve that which they may have otherwise never attempted. these hopeful children do not spend time worrying about the particulars of rigorous requirements they will have to meet and successfully excel at. they do not care how much the schooling may cost, or even how dangerous the job may be. their hopes of exploring space, heroism, or simply helping animals they love lifts them above the plane of pragmatic objectivity. they will to make it happen. they have an expectant desire that what they wish for will come to pass and they work towards it.
i do not think i need spend much time noting that while hope may motivate some, which i would call the actively hopeful, it can also subversively cripple those who i call the apathetically hopeful. they are those who sit around hoping and dreaming but never actually make any effort to see their dreams realized. they may talk about going to space camp, or volunteering overseas, but their actions speak more loudly than any of their words. (it should be duly noted, and i would be wrong not to confess, i fit much more into this latter category than i can humanly stand. in fact, writing that last sentence really sucked.)
example three: the cruel by-product of hope: frustration.
as with all great ideas that spark us to great deeds, there lies a cruel by-product of hope, and that is the constant frustration one experiences in knowing that what they hope is not what they experience in the present. in fact, it seems to me that hope is one of the cardinal virtues we possess that is entirely dependent upon being used in a future-tense. that is to say, we hope that someday dot-dot-dot. or ‘i wished it wasn’t like that’ or ‘keep hoping, things will brighten up.’ my all-time favourite, virtue-turned-cliche.. ‘keep hope alive.’ yet sometimes hope is that one vice which almost seems to negate its positive and productive aspects most assiduously and directly. hope seems to counter hope. for many people, this is where religion and faith-based groups contain a fatal flaw. the hope that their deity or leader will someday do great things, regardless of the truth of the fact that in the present they ignore all of the simple and practical needs of those around them. for many of us inside these united states hope for the world simply means we go on living as we please while the world suffers, yet we pray for them 2.3 minutes and also donate 88 cents a day with the hope that our ‘missional outreaches’ will impact them and change the fact that they have no running water or food or basic sanitation and housing. or that they have no means of supporting themselves.
conclusion.
so what do we do? is hope to be thrown out of the window since it seems to have damaged and rendered-useless so many in society? may it never be! instead let us take all of the moral virtues, including ‘hope’ and insert them into the structure of that all-too-often-spoken verse: faith without works is dead. let us take out faith. let us plug-in: hope, love, compassion, kindness and all of the other ideas that we throw around without actively defining their value.
