Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in her classic book, Gift from the Sea, "We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life…we leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb." We insist on the illusive goals of "permanency, on duration, on continuity." But, life, of course, is like the sea-it ebbs and it flows-and we all feel hopeful when life flows and we all struggle with our hope during the inevitable ebb tides.
We know that no one wants to hear the words, "There is no hope." None of us wants to be in the situation of saying, "I feel hopeless." During the ebb tides of life, we want to sense that hope is near, or at least "at the end of the tunnel." Whether the challenge that confronts us is illness or disability, separation from a loved one or the loss of something very important to us, our situation is eased if we feel some glimmer of hope.
Now, hope is a difficult concept to define, yet no one doubts the value of hope and most of us have known the feeling of hopelessness. Basically, we feel hopelessness in two broad situations-feeling uncertain and feeling stuck. When we are uncertain, we fear that things in our lives will change in some way we do not want. When we are stuck, we fear that things will not change. In both cases, it seems we have lost control of our future.
This morning, I would like to speak about growing hope in our lives. So how might we describe this thing called hope? Although difficult to define, we can say when we hope we expect, no matter what our present condition is, the future can somehow be better. Simply stated, hope is looking forward to something good. And the wonderful thing about hope is that when we hope, the present is affected; hope helps us live with the unpredictability we face. But, hope is also a process, which may not happen immediately. In our passage from Romans this morning, Paul writes, "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5: 3-5). Once again, the ebb and flow imagery, with God’s love being poured into our hearts to give us hope.
I would like to suggest that hoping includes all of our makeup. It is a process of not only believing and feeling; it also involves doing. To grow hope, we must make the decision to be pro-active. To grow hope, we must involve our mind, body, heart, and soul. To grow hope, we must be open to God's love and God's angels on our path. And in that process, we become deeper human beings and find profound meaning in our "ebb tides."
Today, I would like to offer some suggestions on growing hope. Just as we seek to heal our physical bodies when we are injured or ill, we also need to seek the recovery of our hope. Hope normally isn't just handed to us, it must be reached for. We can and must "grow hope," like any organic process.
It seems to me that growing hope involves three stages: (1) being open to hope, (2) moving toward hope, and (3) solidifying hope and making hope a permanent part of our lives.
So how do we open ourselves to hope? To begin with, we need to honor our feelings. Often in difficult times, it is easy to think that our hopelessness is somehow unique. We must remember that it is OK to lose hope, it happens to all of us at various times in our lives. To sit with feelings and honor them is often our first task. We cannot effectively hold on to feelings or let them go until we first experience their reality.
And as we honor our feelings, we need to be open to God's presence in order to receive God's benefits. Just like a light bulb can only be illuminated if the switch is on, we need to "throw the hope switch." We need to allow any hope that is out there to flow our way and light us up. We need to accept that hope is real and it is part of God's grace, which is "poured into our hearts." We need to "hope to hope."
Being open to hope means that we notice that hope is all around us and an easy place to see this is in nature. Nature reminds us, particularly in the changing patterns of New England, that life offers many possibilities and God is at work in nature. By observing how bark heals on a tree, we are reminded how illness and injury are healed in the body, and how hurt is healed in the soul. We can see hope in the face of a child and in the eyes of an older person who is passionate about life. So, observe your surroundings and pay attention to the myriad examples of hope that surrounds us.
Also, understand that God has a habit of allowing hope to find us. To paraphrase John Calvin, it is precisely when we reach our lowest point, that we begin to see the face of God. Paul Tillich, a noted theologian, says that "here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves, is a new creation." We need to remember that hope often comes in the mundane. We come upon hope in places we wouldn't predict, in people we wouldn't expect, and in events we don't anticipate. We must look at our own "heroic" past and remember those times when we felt especially hopeful during times of trial. We can feel hopeful again because we have done it before.
Finally, being open to hope involves finding good company. Hope and hopelessness are both contagious. In difficult times, seek and surround yourself with hopeful people, voices of hope who believe in you and know that you are capable of healing. Such people can also "hold certainty" for you with their optimism and "lend" their hope to you until yours returns. Thankfully, most of us have a select list of soul mates we can call upon. Hopefully, each of us is on someone’s short list of hopeful people.
So, the first step in growing hope is being open to hope. This involves expressing our feelings, keeping our "hope switch" on, noticing hope around us, seeing the sacred in the mundane, and staying close to our healing soul mates.
The second step in growing hope is to begin to move toward hope. God has made humankind to be amazingly adaptive, but somehow we find it difficult to overcome the silence which often accompanies times of hopelessness. You may impose this silence on yourself or others may do it for you. You may run from one activity to another and others may not know how to slow you down and offer words of peace. You may numb yourself with addictive substances and try to isolate yourself by building walls. We need to break this silence of hopelessness by telling our story to another. Communicating our story gives perspective and our small tales become part of a larger fabric, a universal story, that we all share. Sacred story telling carries the lessons and hopes of life. So the first task in moving toward hope is to break the silence.
When we are in need of hope, we also need to experiment. Try new activities, meet new people, explore and try a "hope experiment" each day. You may let your hidden artist out and write, paint, garden, wallpaper, or play music. You may let the clown out and discover that when you laugh at something, you can step back and get a broader perspective.
Remember, moving toward hope is not about moving mountains, it is about moving a single stone, and then another. Taking small steps empowers people who feel hopeless. It makes us realize what we can control rather than concentrating on what we cannot control.
So, the second step in growing hope is to move toward hope. This involves breaking the silence and telling your story, trying "hope experiments," and concentrating on the myriad of things we can control.
Finally, the third thing we need to do to grow hope, in addition to being open to hope and moving toward hope, is to solidify hope and make it a permanent part of our lives. We must etch in our memories those times, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, when we passed thorough life’s "waters" and "rivers" and "flames" and were not overwhelmed or consumed (Isaiah 43: 2). We must remember God’s gift of optimism.
Like a concert pianist, or an Olympic athlete, we must also practice our hoping skills. Identify and name hope when you find it-talk about it, write about it, pray about it. Internalize hope-take it in and make it a part of your being. Express hope, repeat stories of how others found hope, and build a reservoir of hope you can call upon.
To solidify hope we also must be patient. Hoping is seldom an overnight success. One only has to think of Nelson Mandela's thirty years in prison hoping that his native South Africa would someday become a democratic society to remember that hope takes time. Patience also teaches us that a deeper hope can come true even when smaller hopes do not. Hoping is often a lifetime journey rather than an overnight success.
And finally and probably most importantly, to solidify hope in our lives, we must be open to the sacred. In Thornton Wilder's classic play "Our Town," the stage manager states, "Now there are some things we all know. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses, and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't stars." People who hope believe this-they know that something eternal exists, something sacred is around us. Hope does not promise all the answers, certainly not always the ones we may wish for, but hope does help us to remain open to the mystery of life. Somehow, when we look back at our hopes, we discover that a sense of the sacred was at the center of our hope and we more fully understand the words we sang this morning, "Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side."
So, the third and final step in growing hope is to solidify hope and make it a permanent part of our lives. This involves etching hopeful times in our memories, practicing hope, being patient, and above all, being open to the sacred.
Growing hope...Yes it is possible to see life through the lens of hope...we can turn to hope when the vagaries of life surround us...it is possible to make hope a habit...it is possible to treat challenges as one more episode in the unfolding story of hope. By being open to hope, by moving toward hope, and by solidifying hope in our lives, we will come to believe that we are not alone and life can be good no matter how it ebbs and flows. In the words of Henri Nouwen, noted theologian and writer, "hope stretches far beyond the limitations of one's own psychological strength, for it is anchored not just in the soul of the individual, but in God's self-disclosure." Thanks be to God. Amen.
