The Object of Hope

I've been thinking again about hope.  I guess the statement by Michelle Obama about having no hope put it back in my mind.  I wrote a post a bit ago about the subject of hope called Lemonade or Mountains?

In that post I made the comment that Hope is only as good as its object.

For illustration, let's consider trust: Trust, like Hope, is also only as good as the thing being trusted. 

Here's the illustration: Say you're walking on a pier made of boards and you 'trust' that it will be safe.  However, the trust you have is only as good as the state of the lumber upon which you're walking.  You can trust 'til the cows come home, but, if the board is rotten, you will fall.

So it is with Hope, and we naturally ask, "In what do I place my Hope?"

We have almost limitless choices.  As humans, we most often place our hope in things that are, for want of a better term, earthly.  Many of these things are healthy and wholesome on the face of it: Family, Education, Career, Finances, etc.  Nothing wrong with working hard to be educated, to have a good family, to be financially stable, but working hard to achieve these things is different from placing our Hope in them.

We can expand our view and look past our own person or our own family and look at our community or our country.  We can place our hope in a political leader or a political movement.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with working hard to have a better community or a better country.  In doing so we may become involved with some movement or another.  Not only is that not a bad thing, it's laudable.  But, working to improve our surroundings is different than placing our Hope in a leader or a movement.

I'd be willing to bet that you've thought to yourself, "If only (fill in the blank), then I'd be happy."  Feel free to fill in your own blank.  Odds are that the blank has something to do with a person, or a job, or an event, or an election, etc.  See?  We're hard-wired to have Hope.  It's part of our soul.

We are always looking to have fulfillment and everlasting happiness.  That's why fairy tales are so captivating.  Look into the eyes of a youngster as they experience the wonder of the Princess awakening from the Prince's kiss.  Or the horror of the curse of a magic apple.  The child knows that the "if, then" paradigm to life is the right one.  He feels it in his soul.  And he knows that magic is always involved.  The ethereal jives with the soul of a 5 year old.

As we age, though, the magic leaves us.  That's part of the appeal of Peter Pan.  The other kids grow up and leave the magic world, but Peter stays.

I have a friend who is a very successful and talented man.  He has succeeded on most every level one can imagine.  The thing that is most striking to me about him, however, is the excitement that he has when he talks.  While he is in no way childish, he has a child-like wonder.  I have to say, it's a very appealing trait.  It is this trait of his that has drawn me to him over the years, and I still find it compelling.

Being with him is always a reminder of what I left behind in my youth, because I, on the other hand, don't have much child-like wonder about me.  (I can be childish at times, but that's not the same.)  I tend to be much more serious about things, even when I was a child.

Even when I talk about Hope, as I'm doing here, I treat it as a serious topic.  Actually, it's probably more serious than you think.

As we expand our circle of hope from ourselves to our family, to our community, to our country, to our planet, we invariably find that the eternal happiness for which we seek eludes us.  How can this be?  "Surely," we say, "the Hope that we feel bubbling in our soul can be satisfied!"

We might ask, "If this need for fulfillment of Hope is so embedded into my being, then certainly there must be an object in which I may safely place it, right?"

Think of it like this.  Humans get hungry.  Hunger is satiated by food.  There is a basic drive in us that makes us hungry and there is an object for that hunger: food.  We may say that there are many drives in humans for which there are ready made objects: love, creativity, sex, generosity, etc.

But what about Hope?  The drive is certainly there.  No one can deny that.  The question is, "What is it's object?"

The things I listed above (people, vocation, finances, etc.) are all things which may fail us.  They are all of this world, and, thus, are finite.  But the Hope we have isn't finite, it's eternal.  It's magical.  The Hope we have in our soul is the Hope of Happy-Ever-After.  Even as grown, cynical, non-magical adults, that promise sings in our souls.  We've searched for it because the Pan in us knows it's there, but we want it to be tangible.  We want it to be our way.

It's as though the Princess is promised Happy-Ever-After if she eats a grape, but she demands a taco instead.  Her Fairy says, "No, Princess, the spell happens only through this grape," but, pouty lil' thing that she is, she crosses her arms, stomps her feet, squeezes her eyes shut and demands a taco.

We're like that pouty princess.  Spoiled, stubborn, and entitled.  Not only do we want what we want, we want it how we want it.  If you've raised a child, you've seen this behavior in your toddler.  Adolescents are often not much better.  Oftentimes, we aren't either.

"No," we say, "I'm certain that this job (this promotion, this romantic interest, this cure for cancer, this inheritance, this 401k, etc.) will lead to my long term success and happiness, and, if I don't get it, I'm ruined."

Do you see what all of these things have in common?  They're not magical.  They're not ethereal.  Can we not remember the wonder of our youth?  When magic, when the other world, made sense?  Do we not see that our soul yearns for the return of the magical, and that our souls insist that it's real?  The truth is that the magic hasn't left; we've just become cynical and worldly.  We don't believe anymore.

Why do you suppose that we love Christmas shows about Santa being real?  Now, I don't pretend that Santa is a real red-suited fat guy, but I don't deny that stories about him are appealing.  Why?  Because, even as adults, we like the idea of magic.

The object of our Hope, then, must be beyond the temporal in order to satisfy.  It cannot be something that fades with time or is corruptible, for corruptibility is not the promise of the fairy tale.  Happy-Ever-After is the fairy tale.

What is timeless, ethereal, and incorruptible?

Only one thing: God.

If you stop and think about it only for a minute, you'll admit that there is much which the temporal, physical world cannot explain.  The atheists will only admit that the physical world exists.  It's all just an array of molecules acting as molecules act.  Certainly no magic in that.  Yet, there are magical things in the world that even the most cynical amongst us have to admit exist.  How do you mix a universe of molecules and get love?  Love isn't physical.  Or, morality.  That's not physical.  Neither is the wonder in a child's eye.

Molecules can only make physical things.   Likewise, the non-physical can only come from the non-physical.

The ethereal nature of God answers the Hope that we seek.  He provides stability and eternity, and only He can offer such.


I guess what I'm saying here is that, no matter what happens (or doesn't happen), there is always Hope because a Creator with eternity on His side is there making the offer.

All we have to do is eat the grape.

Happily snacking,

TheCurmudgeon