Hope Revisited
[“Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. . . .(It is) an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. . . .It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out” (Václav Havel [1936-2011]).]
[“‘Hope is the thing with feathers – / That perches in the soul – / And sings the tune without the words – / And never stops – at all -“ (Emily Dickinson [1830-86]).]
O Lover,
Since the events of October 7 I have been struggling. The imprint of five years living in East Jerusalem remains after a half century: the places, the culture, especially the people. Since that time I have not wavered from the conviction that the other side of the coin of Palestinian self-determination and well-being can be a secure and peaceful state of Israel. In recent days I have found the prospects of such a two-entity solution increasingly bleak; the empirical data does not give rise to optimism. That my knowledge of the century-long antecedents of this latest savagery separates me from much of media reporting and political posturing on the Israel/Palestine conflict has only added to the heaviness within me. This month it has become clearer that the conflict without has exacerbated the one within, the struggle to hope.
The discouraging data are legion. Most immediately, there are the Hamas atrocities and the vastly disproportionate Israeli response now unfolding, both in stark contempt of international law and conventions. At a deeper level, there is denial of or disregard for the antecedents of another October war. There can be neither justice nor peace if it is assumed that this conflict began on October 7. To the contrary, there must be acknowledgement of both how desperate people, living with a boot on their neck for seventy-five years as have the Palestinians, will respond, and that Zionism has its own terrorism legacy (e.g., King David Hotel bombing [7/22/46], Deir Yassin massacre [4/9/48], murder of Yitzhak Rabin & Oslo Accord [11/4/95]). By now we know that neither truth nor justice is possible apart from this larger picture. No past, even the unspeakable, warrants a free pass in the present. I confess, O Lover, both that the empirical evidence in the present moment does not leave me optimistic, and that my temptation to despair is slaked with anger.
However, hope in the Jesus tradition, in contrast to “optimism,” is not grounded in the vagaries of external phenomena or prospects. The newer testament, in a discussion of faith and hope, speaks of “the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1; EA). Václav Havel, employing nonreligious language (“good,” “something [that] makes sense”), similarly points away from criteria of utility and outcome. But what, finally, is the ground, the depth, of such trans-empirical and trans-cognitive hope, particularly in a time like the last month, or is it mere wish-fulfillment or auto-therapeutic balm? That that question implies that hope is both arduous and risk-ladened does not offend me, for I have long since concluded that risk is intrinsic to the life of faith.
The answer to that “ground” and “depth” question, one which I find it necessary of late to re-embrace hourly, is that You are, O Lover, here and now, immanently infusing the creaturehood in part and in the whole. I refuse to concede the human mosaic to the flames and despair, for You are our Core, the ubiquitous “something uncreated” (Eckhart). The engine of hope for me is Your Sacred Heart brooding over (Gen 1:2) and tabernacling within (Jn 1:14 & Apoc 21:3) our planetary home presently on the scaffold. In the Jesus tradition it is the mystical edge, that immanent/incarnational “minority report”, which best completes the circle of the inward/outward, interior/exterior, contemplative/active. And the disposition of You, whose relationship with us finites can be confined to “neither two nor one” (advaíta), a disposition to which I am ever called to join myself, is most tellingly depicted in the Christ event. Playing off of Descartes, I hope because You are. Neither generic divinity nor remote majesty, déus ex machína overriding our agency nor some exponentialized being, but the Pervading One of whom my least inadequate handles include Tabernacler, Solidaritor, Alchemist, and, yes, Lover. And because hope is derivative of You, it ever “sings the tune without the words” (E. Dickinson) and is, finally, ineffable as are You.
I have during this last month faced the optimism/hope fork repeatedly. While hope is Your gift, it also engages my agency. To excerpt the words of Joshua: “choose for yourselves this day” (24:15). O Lover, I choose yet again this day.
