Hope... (fragment i)

In open conversation with the future.

When is hope, a good response to doubt and despair?

Try ‘Finisterre’ a poem by David Whyte.

The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,into the western sea.

I suggest hope, a good-spirited human excellence that illuminates our shared humanity in dark times, is called for when we see no way forward.

Hope however doesn't seem equally valued amongst us.

Is hope passive resignation, a flight of fancy and irrational? Does hope not renounce this life for hope in an afterlife? Is hope a left-over spiritual intuition hoping that there is this big daddy in the sky, that will make everything all right? Is hope an escape from being present? Is 'hope, fear in disguise', where we hope or fear in equal measure to avoid or obtain a certain outcome?

These questions sow doubt and portray a small-minded, fear-bound, wishful-thinking type of hope that would prolong suffering.

Still, I sense great anxiety, uncertainty, and despair when we think of our shared global future. Is this not a call to Hope?

And if so, how does it help us actively orientate ourselves and engage with the various disparaging crises and disruptive changes that lead to further separation, loneliness, and despair?

To find some orientation, a few useful distinctions:

• Hope as Intentional - directed toward what is believed an obtainable outcome.
• Hope as Dispositional - a state of being hopeful. To cultivate a hopeful character. I will be focusing on hope as a character virtue.

When hope is easily exchangeable with fear, it is usually directed(with intention) to a desired outcome. 'I hope to pass the exam'; 'I hope the doctors can treat the cancer.' This type of hope is directed to specific outcomes, and not a response to despair. Despair's very meaning is hopelessness, to give up, that there is no visible outcome or way out.

Hope as a virtue comes beyond our ability to make sense of a situation.

as you stood where ground turned to ocean, no way to your future now, except the way your shadow could take... to go where shadows go, no way to make sense of a world that wouldn't let you pass.

Hope as a virtue is a new orientation to life. It is called into being at the end of the road, to new ways of being in the world often yet unimaginable.

to abandon the shoes that brought you here, right at the water's edge, not because you've given up, but because now you would find a different way to tread

How does hope find a new way to tread?

Hope speaks of possibility, not certainty. Hope is self-transcendent and communal, beautifully summed up by the philosopher Gabriel Marcel:

I hope in you for us.

Hope is a spirit of openness at the edge of the known. In conversation with a horizon, we can never reach.

In this way, Hope is not striving for an outcome, but receptive in correspondence with the darkness it addresses.

In Greek Mythology Hope is found amongst the darkest spirits of suffering, sorrow, disease, and despair, placed in Pandora's Box. Did the ancients see hope as an evil spirit?

If hope is nothing but an illusion, a trickster spirit inside us, we can see how hope could prolong our suffering by holding out against better judgment.

However...

Hope keeps dark company, unlike positive thinking and optimism. A virtue finds balance and harmony with life. Hope does not turn its back on sorrow, indeed it accompanies it. Where positive thinking and optimism close themselves off from lamentations and sorrows, hope listens and grows our empathy and connection with one another.

Hope puts you in a proper relationship with reality, an open dialogue with the future, unknown and uncertain as it is.

Its ground is the frontier at the edge of endings, opening the door to new possibilities. Hope is a trust and affirmation of the cycles of life.

(fragment ii)