Hope For Our Time
When one does not have hope one can find life to feel boring, be repetitious or even painful, find little or no energy and enthusiasm, even look bleak; in the worst case one may not feel that life is worth living. Whether a person uses the precise words or not many persons with these or similar feelings visit their clergyperson, or in more painful moments, call a pastoral psychotherapist. A person is making these calls and visits because he/she does not feel hopeful, cannot find the hope in his/her life. But hoping is a psychological and religious process that arises from the complexities of life and of faith.
Hoping occurs when there might be a calamity, a personal kind like the loss of a job or a life, or a more global kind, like a war or an earthquake; think of the earthquake, which just occurred in India. One cannot escape these events; one must face them. Denial, rationalization or repression are feelings that do not help. Distinct from wishing, which has its own place in our lives, hoping orients one to what is actually going on in life, has to do with getting through a problem or difficulty, and remains grounded in present reality.
Hoping arises from a history. Hope is what one can reasonably expect, with both patience and endurance; it is a response that helps one to get through the tragedy or deal with it in some more hopeful way. Favorable change will occur, but it may take time and effort. The time and effort is often what leads one more immediately to despair. Hope, too, looks to the future. The open ended process of reality looks to the future because of resources in creation, and in Faith.
Hope for the earthquake victim comes in the form of aid from religious and secular groups and nations around the world. Hope for the Jews during the time of the Maccabees came in the 8 days of light of the candles in the temple; this miracle where Hope prevailed in remembered in the celebration of Hanukkah. Hope for Jane Goodall, the woman who did so much work with chimpanzees in Africa. comes from what she sees as the creativity of the human brain; how nature to her seems so resilient, to clean up polluted water or to make life our of deserts; the enthusiasm of young people for life, just to name a few. Hope for the Christian is profoundly placed in the centrality of Jesus, as the Christ and the way in which Christians find that presence to be experienced in each generation. (Indeed, many of our religions have a history of hope, which is their resource for looking at life, even in the most tumultuous times.)
One writer talks about hope as that which sustains us when we have nothing else left. Many of the survivors of the holocaust certainly found a sense of hope. The followers of Jesus had little else but the hope that the presence of Christ would continue. When it becomes clear that all that one has relied on is depleted or no longer dependable hope in one’s faith may be all that is left. Not as a last resort but as a gift and a promise of a resource that has not abandoned one. When all of the resources have fallen by the wayside hope will replace the confidence that one can master this crisis and has the resources to do it,
Several things need to be taken into consideration when one loses hope. Help one with their worldview and reality testing as to what is going on around him/her. Very often one must struggle to integrate in some way what is believed with what is being experienced. Such integration is often the place where one might need to seek the help of a pastoral psychotherapist. Helping one to find a hopeful attitude, in times of physical, emotional, relational, even national crisis is important just to survive and come through a process better than if one had no hope at all. Even the smallest positive effect of hoping, a gift to the one in despair, can make a huge difference in the next step or in the future. Friends or professionals are often present to give or bring hope, in a way grounded in one’s personal experience. The ultimate hope can be in the God who holds the creation in divine and loving care. Helping one find the hope that comes from life and is guided by one’s faith holds a person safe in their time of calamity. Don’t promise the moon; don’t just look for the positive or only think positively. But, be in the moment with the one in despair or who lacks hope so you can make that walk in the process of life; with your presence that person will know and feel the promise of the divine hope.
This article first appeared in the Farmington Observer.
Dr. Paul Melrose
