Leaping into Hope

Monday Meditation—January 4, 2010

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.  Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 1:17-19a

As I was wondering how to describe the term “hope,” an image came into my mind of Tess.  Tess is the 2 year old black Labrador that belongs to my friends Lee Ann and David Tolzmann.  Tess now lives with Lee Ann and David in their new home in Riverside Connecticut.

Since I was with Tess and her parents over the long snow weekend—waiting to get back to Baltimore---I had a good deal of time to observe Tess.  And like most dogs, she is ever hopeful.

When I first got to the Tolzmanns, I noticed that there were small catches of dog toys strategically placed in various corners of the house.
Just like when my children were toddlers, there seemed to be way too many toys per child or dog.
Surely Tess was did not realy play with all these toys.
But she really and truly did.
Whenever we sat down in the family room to read or watch television (and get the most recent forecast and worry about the storm), Tess went to her catch of toys and pulled one out and came right over to one of us.
She was ever hopeful that we would throw the toy or pull the toy or admire the toy.
And once we threw the ball or stuffed animal, she retrieved the toy and returned, tail wagging, gleeful about the throw and ever hopeful that we would throw the toy again and again and again…

Curtis Almquist, the Superior of the Society of St John the Evangelist, an order of Anglican monks in Cambridge Mass, has written a book called Unwrapping the Gifts:  The 12 Days of Christmas  (Cowley Publications, 2008)
It’s easy to forget that the liturgical celebration of Christmas actually takes place for 12 days after Christmas Eve.
With our cultural celebration from Thanksgiving onward of Christmas, it is hard to get into the spirit of the 12 days of Christmas.
Instead of celebrating the gifts of the season from December 25th until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6, we are mostly getting ourselves ready to go back to work or to school.  Returning gifts, putting away our Christmas decorations, getting back to normal.
But what would it be to reclaim the spiritual gifts of the Christmas season this year—at least for a day or two?

As Brother Almquist sees it, hope is one of the gifts of Christmastide.
And hope is a term that Paul uses again and again in his letters.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, Paul says that hope is “a steadfast anchor of the soul.” (Hebrews 6:19)
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, we know that “faith, hope, and love abide.”  (1 Cor. 13:13)
Brother Curtis defines hope as “expectant desire.”
Neither desire or expectation alone is hope.
We can desire something but not expect it.
We can expect something to happen but not desire it.
Rather, hope is “ a melding of expectation and desire…It is a sense of the possible—a sense that something will change, that something will come.”  (p. 38)
In the monastic world, there is a Latin saying that captures hope—bonum arduum—roughly translated “a steep good.”
To hope is to hope for “a steep good”---“that is, something that does not already lie in reach of the outstretched hand, something that might still be denied us, though we do have a sense, even still, that we will likely have it.”(p. 39)

And because we hope, we act.  Without hope, we are unable to act or to function.
Well, maybe we can go through the routine.  Make it through a day.
But really live?  Without hope, that is impossible.
That’s why places of hopelessness in our lives are so hard to live into.

In order to hope in a place or issue or time that seems hopeless is to draw on both the past and the future.

First, in order to find in a time of hopelessness, we look for how we made it thus far.
Here is an exercise courtesy of Curtis Almquist:
Make a list of three different things about which (or in whom) you have hopes for change.  These hopes can be related to your self, your family, your work, your future.  Three things you can see or imagine.
Now, draw a line through these things.
They’re not going to happen.
See if you can pry yourself from these three things on your list.
Are you still there?
What is left, after you’ve seen your hopes come and go, is hope.
Whatever sense there is that we can go on, that we will make it, that there is somehow sense and purpose and a future—though your hopes be dashed—that is hope.

Second, when we have this hope deeply anchored and embedded in our souls, we can then act.
Move in the directions of all our hopes and dreams.
Even if they won’t appear as we imagine they will.  
For without action, hopes do not become realized.

W.H. Murray, a Scottish explorer, wrote “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”

After Joan Erikson’s husband of many years, Erik Erikson, died, this is the poem she read at his funeral:

The word “hope” the learned say
Is derived from the shorter one “Hop”
And leads one onto “Leap.”
Plato, in his turn, says that the leaping
Of young creatures is the essence of play-
So be it!
To hope, then, means to take a playful leap
Into the future—
To dare to spring from firm ground—
To play trustingly—invest energy, laughter,
And one good leap encourages another—
On then with the dance.
(quoted in Unwrapping the Gifts:  The Twelve Days of Christmas by Curtis Almquist)

In this New Year, this Christmastide, this Epiphany, we all surely have hopes and dreams for this New Year.
An expectant desire—a sense of the possible that we can’t quite see.
A bonum arduum—something we leap towards even though we aren’t sure it could truly happen.
Or maybe we come to this New Year with a sense of hopelessness—in need of finding that deep, anchoring hope that lies underneath it all so that we can act and move forward.
As the Apostle Paul says, hope is a mixture of wisdom—knowing that you’ve survived before and will survive again---AND revelation—leaping into the new to bring hope alive in the human soul.
In 2010, take that leap of faith---the leap of hope!