Many of us today may feel the sense of at least these first few words: "We are confronted by [the] insurmountable." Those idealists among us (and which of us as a Unitarian is not an idealist?) have looked forward to a transformed world. We have reasons to be disillusioned. There is no need to enumerate our many obstacles: global warming, growing epidemics, the growing disparity between rich and poor, the unforeseen effects of genetically modified food, and a hundred other potential catastrophes.
It is especially difficult to speak to our children, idealistically, about the future. Scott Russell, in his book Hunting for Hope, records his response to a tough question from his daughter:
When Eva asked whether I thought she should ever have children, I wanted to shout "Yes!" because Ruth and I have had so much joy from our own children, and because I know Eva will make a superb mother. But Eva was asking for more than a father's hasty vote of confidence. She was asking for a deliberate answer, one that faces honestly the outlook for life in a context of swelling population, dwindling resources, persistent violence, epidemic consumerism, and spiritual drift ... she was asking me whether I believe there are reasons to live in hope not only for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren (p.65).
How shall we answer such queries from our children? And how shall we answer ourselves in these times?
I.
There are degrees of hoping. Some hopes are realistic. We hope that our business client will accept our proposal. We hope that our congregation will meet our budget. We hope that our teenage drivers will arrive home safely at night. Or when we are feeling low, we hope that we will have the strength to get out of bed the next morning.
Other hopes are less reliable. We may hope to win the lottery. I would like to live long enough to see how things turn out in 50 years. Still, miracles do happen. We may hope that the advertising industry will cease to advertise useless products. We may even hope to someday elect a president whom we can trust!
Then there are hopes that are impossible. As the lyrics from "Les Miserables" put it: "There are dreams that cannot be, and storms we cannot weather..." The greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere are already up there. There is nothing we can do to diminish their increasing effects. Extinguished species are lost forever. Speaking about the environment, Dr. Deborah Jensen, chief scientist of the Nature Conservancy, recently lamented: "Things are getting worse faster than they're getting better." We are winning battles but losing the war.
When the probability of success is negligible, but the desire for hope nevertheless remains, some are wont to believe in a second kind of hope. That is to "hope against hope." For some this may indeed be a valuable resource. So I do not want to disparage it.
But for me, "hoping against hope" is not truly helpful. I do not want to base my life upon fantasy, even of the most appealing variety. Given a choice, I would rather be real than hopeful.
What will motivate us when our hopes are not realistic?
To further explore this question, I believe we must not only explore the degrees of hope. We must also consider degrees of hopelessness, and understand the difference between hopelessness and despair.
II.
One kind of hopelessness results from unfulfilled dreams and expectations.
A second kind results from the loss of belief in any possible redemption in the situation. These are two different kinds of hopelessness and the distinction between them is vitally important.
Charlotte Bronte is credited with saying about the first kind: "Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectations." We plan a trip around the world and get sick on the day of departure, as recently happened to a friend of mine. Or we work to preserve the rain forest, but ever fail in the face of corporate exploitation. We can lose hope when a particular expectation of ours does not materialize.
But there are hopes that arise beyond our expectation. Like new-growth pines after a forest fire, they germinate only in the space cleared by the loss of the old oaks.
I believe that every situation contains gifts for which we have not even prayed.
The discovery of such surprising hopes is especially evident with those of us who face life-threatening diseases. Some will describe even cancer as a wake-up call to a new intensity of living. They will even be grateful for an unexpected result: a deepening of their spirit, a re-evaluation of their life's priorities, and a widening compassion.
The unhoped-for gifts in hopeless situations usually turn out to be transformations of the spirit. But transforming our spirit is, after all, our life's central task.
III.
When our hope is circumscribed by wants, we will sooner or later run out of it. We can never have all we want. Having all is, after all, the child's fantasy.
As adults, we often overlay this fantasy with altruistic concerns. We may sit by the bedside of one who is dying and hope for her recovery. But our hope is sometimes less for the welfare of the patient than it is that we not be abandoned. Sometimes a person is comfortable with dying, but the family is not ready to release her.
It is especially easy to mask egocentric desires with idealistic goals. We sometimes indulge in what someone has called "the arrogance of idealism." For example, I grieve over the degradation of the environment, but I know my grief is often less for perishing animals and plants than it is for my personal sense of loss. I grieve that responsible leaders do not make sensible decisions for society. But a portion of this grief is over my loss of trust.
It is important, therefore, to look closely at what we hope for.
IV.
In particular, let us now look more closely at the biggest obstacle of all to hope. The biggest obstacle to hope is our attachment to the need for success.
Our society nearly worships success. We have no monuments for those who failed at noble causes.
If we decide to commit only to those ventures that predicate success, we become little more than mere brokers of the spirit. If the odds are really bad, we will give up, stop working. If the odds are good, then we will invest our energy. Though the ends for which we strive may be idealistic, even spiritual, our motivation is little better than off-track betting.
Ironically, it is this very doctrine of allegiance to a narrowly focused right to success over others that has often been used to justify our exploitation of the poor and the trampling of the environment.
An undue reliance upon success was perhaps responsible for the demise of the '60s' optimism. When the dreams of those of us in that period collapsed, we ditched them. We would not continue working for what we believed we could not win, so we stopped working for what we believed in.
More times than I wish, I have chosen the pragmatic path. But I am proud of those times when, presented with a choice, I had the courage to take the right step without knowing whether I would succeed. Even more than accomplishments, I am proud that at certain critical times, I chose the right way regardless.
I believe, with Christopher Morley, that "There is only one success and that is to spend your own life in your own way."
History books record our world's conflicts. They tell us about oppressive victors, and sometimes they tally the numbers of resisters, as some books are now calculating for Nazi Germany. But whether or not the numbers of resisters are recorded in books, they are known by witnesses. The lives of these witnesses are changed, and they in turn inspire others throughout generations.
Early in the Clinton administration, Rep. Tony Hall, an eight-term member of Congress, was informed that the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Hunger, which he chaired, was being terminated for budgetary reasons.
His wife and he sat down and reread Hebrew scripture, Isaiah 58: "Is this not the fast I choose ... to share your bread with the hungry..."
Hall began an open-ended water fast to bring Congress' attention to the urgency of hunger. In speaking to a reporter about his fasting, he said, "One of the things I am learning is that this is a very humbling experience. I'm also learning that I want the fast to be successful." But he went on to say, "But God's not calling me to be successful. He's calling me to be faithful." (Yoga Journal, Nov.-Dec. 1994).
As it happened, three weeks later, Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy called the thinning congressman to offer national and regional summits on the issue of hunger in America. Then the World Bank phoned to suggest a series of similar summits. And so this illustration has a happy ending.
But what I remember from this event is not Hall's success. It is the words: "God's not calling me to be successful. He's calling me to be faithful."
Someone has quipped, "If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." Is it not true that "If a job is worth doing, it is worth failing at"? Eugene O'Neil wrote: "Any man who has a big enough dream must expect to be a failure and accept this as a fact of life."
For years, Unitarian resister, and later president of Czechoslovakia, Victor Havel and his fellow dissidents protested against the Communist regime. They circulated petitions, drafted manifestos, staged protest plays, and smuggled news to the outside world with very little to show for it.
What kept them struggling? It was not a belief that their cause would prevail, but a belief that their cause was right. When Havel was released from the last of his prison terms, he spoke to an interviewer about hope. He said, "Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons." (Hunting for Hope, p.27).
The deepest hope arises somewhere beyond our horizons.
V.
When we can, to the degree that is possible for us, detach ourselves from the obligation of results, and commit ourselves, as much as we possibly can, to the doing of what is valuable, a new hope appears.
Living in a finite universe, we must live within limited hopes. But there are no limits on the stretching of our hearts.
Appropriately enough, the Latin word for heart, cor, and the French, coeur, also meaning heart, are the sources of our word "courage." To become courageous is to be heartened.
The Latin word for hope is sperae. It derives from an Indo-European root, spei, which means to expand. Our heart is ever expanding.
It is an old truth. Unitarian minister of the 19th century Octavius Brooks Frothingham wrote: "Our confidence in ideas and principles is not half what it should be. Our anticipation of results is about double what it should be."
Beyond the horizon of our particular hopes, there awaits an unlimited expansion of our spirit. Where limited hopes end, a larger-heartedness may begin.
Heartened, all of us will find the courage to do what needs to be done.
May each of us be so empowered.
The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist setting is never the last word on any subject, but rather an invitation to further dialog.
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