There should always be hope. And there can be. Hope can rest on you comfortably with promise and peace. It can be as natural, as reflexive, as the breath you take. It can attend your rising up and accompany you through the day, every day. And in the darker times, the times of loss, it can hold you up and sustain you. It is essential for your emotional health, the confident exercise of your talents and gifts, the excited reaching out for new horizons, for happiness and peace with who you are, where you are, and who you are becoming.
But I’m not speaking of the hope of everyday discourse, the stuff of good fortune, good luck or, at best, encouraging probabilities. The hope I speak of is a virtue, a spiritual virtue. And in a sublime and transcendent sense, it accepts, forgives, moves on, and places yesterday’s experiences and memories in their rightful place in the past. There they are not a barrier to the future, but wise counsel that informs and guides us. The spiritual virtue of hope overcomes the misleading and dispiriting experiences and memories; it transcends the burdens, disappointments, and limiting identities the world assigns us. Hope, in that sense, is part of a greater Purpose and process. It is, in the view of the faithful, a gift from God.
But let’s first explore more common notions of hope in the choices we make in everyday life. If your personal choices, and especially the human responsibilities and accountabilities you face, are some of the stuff of your hopes, then you must consider carefully where or with whom you can wisely, reliably entrust those hopes. For to place undue trust, blind or naïve trust, in yourself or others—including government and faith-based organizations or leaders—reduces your hope to a fickle companion. That is the stuff of misplaced everyday hope, waxing and waning hope at best, and sometimes of hope lost.
Of course, you will be helpless to avoid misplaced hopes in many everyday situations. It is part of our nature, but also part of our experience and journey. But experience and wisdom gained dictate that such hopes as these be entertained only in sober consideration of your abilities and the attendant circumstances, the things within and without your control. But the results are so often out of our control, and so much a matter of probability or pure chance that failure, loss and disappointment remain unavoidable aspects of life.
And it is also important to understand the circumstances and forces arrayed against you—not the least of which is that selfish, excluding, and calculating side of man himself, his foibles and also his darker side, the matter of evil. So remember that we are called to be loving, compassionate and innocent in serving God and humanity, but also worldly-wise so that we do not naively misplace, waste or dishonor God’s gifts, invitations and work offered through us.
Yet, in all these things, the spiritual virtue of hope can be your constant and comforting companion. But trust must be placed in a balanced, transcending faith in God, and acted upon consistent with that faith and the leadership of His Love. The hope of the spiritual seeker then becomes a well-placed hope and trust in the purposes and leadership of the Giver of hope, in His plan and guidance for the unfolding of your life.
It should be understandable, then, that you should make your choices and pursue your matters of conscience without unreasonable burdens or responsibilities for success or failure. In that spirit, there is an old adage among some faithful that says, “I am not called to succeed, but to serve.” I’m sure you appreciate the wisdom in this. It does not suggest in any way a lack of passion, determination, or gifted effort. It is merely a reminder that there are reasonable and differing limits to how much each of us can do, how much we can and should bear within the context of God’s plan and direction for each of us. And God often does not prescribe temporal success and fulfillment. It isn’t heaven yet. Therefore, a balanced understanding of your place in the world is important, but so is an understanding of your greater purpose and priorities, what is ultimately most important. All burdens beyond that are for God’s shoulders to bear.
I know you understand how the emotional need for everyday hope emerges from the harsher realities of the world: its passing, often failed nature, and the cries for help, healing, compassion and love, often including our own. And for many it is all the more frantically sought as they flee the disquieting image of a promised hole in the ground. But also understand that the spiritual virtue of hope finds reliable footing only on transcending faith-based foundations that inform and shape our identity and our lives. And the more we understand these lessons of hope, the more we also must come to understand humility: what it is, what it does, and why strengthening of that characteristic, too, necessarily attends our spiritual growth and fulfillment, our transcendent walk and peace with the world and the One who calls us.
Hope, then, joins faith and love as the three great spiritual virtues. These three virtues inform, lead and animate our spiritual journey, as well as our choices of conscience and service to others. And the humility that attends them allows us to keep our role, our path, and our hope in balance with the nature and ways of God as we navigate the nature and ways of the world. And that is the existential and spiritual point, isn’t it?
First written: September 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
