Trembling with Hope

Photo by David Clode

“The reason behind the need to dominate others derives from a terror of being dominated by them.” —Rovelli, 160

Do you hear what I hear? Shouting in the streets, whispers in the break room, sobs behind bedroom doors. Neighbors barricade themselves behind garage doors and yard signs, fear or apathy keeping them from venturing across rigidly drawn tribal lines. Right and Left seem like polarities rather than two halves of the same whole. Discourse and rigorous debate are pastimes of past times. Communities do not have enough common ground to plant a flag on, much less a pair of podiums or, better yet, armchairs. We are divided. Our communities. Our families. Ourselves. We have forsaken the work of dialogue for the pacification of soothing our desire for confirmation.

Throughout time, all people have thought of themselves as experiencing the furthest tip of what is—riding the crest of the wave of being, and from that vantage, things often look scary. The past always seems gilded by certainty. While disaster certainly struck, we know its extent because it is constrained and contained by history. Nothing additional need be feared, as the past is printed, matted, and framed. As we tremble in the face of snowballing cultural crises, we comb through the stories of the past, finding or spinning threads of our collective story. We are determined that “the mythic image shows… the way in which the cosmic energy manifests itself in time.” (Campbell, Pathways to Bliss, xv) We want all of this nonsense to lead somewhere. Throughout time we have learned to see stories of resilience, altruism, and kindness as markers of hope leading from despair to triumph, from grief to solace, and, most importantly, from here to somewhere.

That is the basis of hope, isn’t it? The feeling that life is leading somewhere. Hope is knowing that, while these steps are difficult, they are contiguous with the steps that lead to the promised land. But like all feelings and beliefs, hope is not constant. In the face of here, hope feels thin.

In the fourteenth century, plague choked out 50% of human life in Europe. I am sure that from the front edge of that moment, nothing like hope could be found. Whole villages died in each other’s arms, and the death knells only stopped when there was no one left to ring the bells.

In the first century, Rome built roads and used them to pave over the lives and cultures of the Western world. It is hard to hold a candle aloft in the name of hope with a boot on your neck, a lion in the arena, and a nail through your hand.

In the sixteenth century, five to eight million people died of smallpox in Mexico, Central America, and South America, brought to their shores by European explorers—a master class in learning not to welcome the stranger.

Advent is a season in the Christian year which invites all of creation into a practice of hope. Candles are lit, prayers are said, and longing is animated toward bringing joy to our communities, but from the crest of the tidal wave of our current now, hope feels like a flood-engulfed lighthouse. Mistrust and frustration are now the baseline in many communities. As we are assaulted by advertising, we are dismayed by the rising cost of milk, checkups, and housing.

If hope is to come to our communities this Advent, it had better wear hobnail boots.

Throughout the season of Advent, I will be studying and sharing insights from Carlo Rovelli’s There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important than Kindness and Joan Chittister’s The Rule of Benedict to explore pathways for incarnating grace within community. And, like Advent, learning to get along in community could do worse than to start with hope.

Hope is an updraft under the wings of the migrating goose. Hope is the assurance that the knitted scarf you handed through the car window on a bitter Tuesday afternoon will ward off the chill of the desperate stranger. Hope is being willing to walk through the difficulty of the bog because you know that the path is ahead and to the northwest. Community is hard. It is disappointing, frustrating, agonizing work, yet working to overcome the persistent narrative of I-am-here-to-get-mine is possibly the closest possibility we have to becoming heroic.

But how, sister, how?

“Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice.” (Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 3) St. Benedict’s words offer a clue to our first step.

Listen.

Humbly.

Listen to those around you, not to respond, but to hear; and as they speak, take on a fresh mind, one unencumbered by who you have been.

Listen to the trees. They have been here longer; their memories are long, but their voices are subtle. It will take work.

Listen for why her words scour your world of joy: is it fear or shame or anger? Is it hers? Yours?

Listen for the question that the universe is asking. I am glad you don’t have the answer. Answers are boring. Questions lead to new things.

Things like hope.