Having Hope, Feeling Hopeless, Being Hope Free

As you see from the title, this blog article is about hope, but please note that it is only about hope in the here and now. Hope for or in the “afterlife” is certainly of great importance, but this post is only about the hope we have, or don’t have, in this world at this time. 

Hope is a widely used word and an appealing concept. I have long been an ardent advocate of hope, in spite of not always being optimistic.*

Often, though, hope is just a word expressing what we desire: we “hope” it won’t rain on our picnic planned for the weekend or we “hope” our team wins the game we have tickets for. But such hope is nothing more than wishful thinking and has negligible impact on what we will do or not do.

In a more robust sense, hope means to work for and to wait for something with the confident expectation and anticipation that it will at some point, sooner or later, be fulfilled. In that sense, hope is grounded in a positive view of the future that we believe is conceivable.

Challenging circumstances sometimes siphon off hope, but then through determination one can cultivate new hope. In fact, “New Hope” is the name of two churches that are very meaningful to me.**

In numerous ways and at numerous times, having hope is a good and positive mindset, one to be affirmed and promoted.

When we no longer have hope, we feel hopeless, and that is usually an uncomfortable state of affairs.  

In his book Die Wise (2015), Stephen Jenkinson writes, “Hope is very often a refusal to know what is so, and steadfastly it is a refusal to live as if the present moment is good enough and all we really have. Hopeless is the collapse of that refusal, and it looks a lot like depression.”

So, feeling hopeless is often a negative state of mind and one we want to avoid as much as possible. But, realistically, sometimes it is necessary to give up hope and to deal with what is rather than what we would like to be otherwise.

For example, when a terminally ill person’s loved ones give up hope, they put that loved one on hospice, seeking to make them as comfortable as possible for the remainder of their days, no longer hoping that they will miraculously regain their health.

Some who see the current ecological crisis most clearly think the struggle to save the environment is hopeless. Thus, Guy McPherson avers, “The living planet is in the fourth and final stage of a terminal disease. . . . it is long past time we admitted hospice is the only reasonable way forward.”***.

There is a close relationship, then, between hopelessness and being hope free.

Why can being hope free be considered a good thing? Well, hope can be, and perhaps often is, a refusal to accept reality. In that way, it is ill-founded and detrimental. To be hopeful in spite of clearly having a terminal illness is not helpful.

In January of last year, I made a blog post about the “serenity prayer” attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. That prayer begins, “GOD, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can; and the Wisdom to know the difference.”

Perhaps some of us have mostly emphasized the second part: the prayer for courage to change things. But maybe the first part is more important: the prayer for the serenity to accept things that cannot be changed, thus, to be hope free.

That doesn’t mean being constantly depressed as when we feel hopeless. Rather, as is expressed in the longer version of the prayer, it means “Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.”

Accordingly, hope free advocate McPherson, who thinks “near term human extinction” is certain, writes, “I recommend living fully. I recommend living with intention. . . . I recommend the pursuit of excellence. I recommend the pursuit of love” (Only Love Remains, p. 175).

Amen.

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* Some of you may remember my Oct. 30, 2021, blog post titled “Hopeful, But Not Optimistic.” (Click here if you would like to read it again—or for the first time.)  

** You may want to (re)read this blog article I posted about those churches nearly ten years ago.

*** McPherson (b. 1960) is Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, where he was a tenured professor from 1989 to 2009. The words cited above are from his 2019 book Only Love Remains: Dancing at the Edge of Extinction (p. 199). He is also the author of "Becoming Hope-Free: Parallels Between Death of Individuals and Extinction of Homo Sapiens," Clinical Psychology Forum, No. 317, May 2019.

Apologies to the Grandchildren

As many of you know, I have seven grandchildren. The oldest celebrated her 38^th birthday in January, so I have been a grandfather for 38 years now. In 2022, two of my granddaughters became mothers, so now I also have two precious great-grandchildren, the first born a year ago last month.

I have been thinking about my grandchildren in a new way because of reading two books written to or for grandchildren. Those books are closely related to my January 28 blog post.

Larry R. Rasmussen’s book The Planet You Inherit was published last year. Its subtitle is Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing. I had the privilege of writing a review of that book for The Englewood Review of Books, and you can read that review here.

Rasmussen (b. 1939) is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, emeritus, at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Among his published books are Earth Community, Earth Ethics (1996) and Earth Honoring Faith (2013).

It is no surprise that the letters written to Eduardo and Martin Rasmussen Villegas (b. 2015 and 2018), his two grandchildren, are primarily related to his many years of ecotheological teaching and writing.

While the letters clearly express the writer’s love for his two young grandsons, it will likely be 2035 and beyond before they will be able to comprehend the meaning and significance of those letters.

Maybe, though, the writer’s intention was to say important things to us adults who read those letters now, as well as to Eduardo and Martin, who will be reading them much later.

One of Rasmussen’s most important letters is titled “Responsible by Degrees,” written in August 2020. There he broached the possibility of “widespread civilizational collapse”—and asserts that “we know we must put an end to a growing, extractive economy running on ecological deficits.”

Rasmussen, though, has hopeful views about humanity’s ability to confront the current and coming ecological crisis effectively, and those views need to be pondered thoughtfully.

Still, this challenging book written for the author’s young grandsons needs to be balanced with careful consideration of more realistic views about what is most likely to occur in Eduardo’s and Martin’s lifetime.

William Ophuls’s Apologies to the Grandchildren is a 2018 book of essays, the first one bearing the same title as the book, which does give a more realistic and less hopeful view of the current ecological crisis.

(I first learned of Ophuls, born in 1934 and with a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1973, from the video by Michael Dowd that I introduced in my January 28^th blog post linked to above).

Ophuls begins his essay with stark words: ”Civilization is, by its very nature, a long-running Ponzi scheme. It lives by robbing nature and borrowing from the future, exploiting its hinterland until there is nothing left to exploit, after which it implodes.”

He continues by saying that civilization “generates a temporary and fictitious surplus that it uses to enrich and empower the few and to dispossess and dominate the many. Industrial civilization is the apotheosis and quintessence of this fatal course.”

He goes on to write these blunt words to the grandchildren, “A fortunate minority gains luxuries and freedoms galore, but only by slaughtering, poisoning, and exhausting creation. So we bequeath you a ruined planet that dooms you to a hardscrabble existence, or perhaps none at all” (p. 1)

What Can We Say/Do? While I would like to embrace Rasmussen’s hopeful view, I have become convinced by Ophuls and by Dowd—as well as by William Catton, whom I plan to introduce in later blog posts—that my grandchildren and their children will experience a world of increasing gloom.

Perhaps there is still time for necessary changes to be made, but that is doubtful—and there is little evidence to indicate that such changes will likely be made. Perhaps, sadly, little can realistically be done other than to offer deep apologies to the grandchildren.

Yet, surely, we can work toward pushing the impending collapse farther into the future and encourage the grandchildren to find ways to flourish now in the present, regardless of what looms in a future that, unfortunately, may not be as uncertain as Rasmussen thinks. 

"Memento Mori" for the World?

In this year’s first blog post, I wrote some about the ancient idea of memento mori. (If you didn’t see or don’t remember that, click here.) Now, referring to some of my most important posts from 2022, I am wondering whether memento mori can apply to the world, not just individual people. 

Once again, I am linking to significant ideas of Michael Dowd, by whom I have been significantly influenced.* In December of last year, he posted a new YouTube video titled “Sanity 101.” The full version (here) is over 90 minutes long; the “Cliff Notes” version (here) is 30 minutes.

At some point, I encourage you to listen to one or both of those videos, which have the subtitle, “Living Fully in an Age of Decline: Essential Wisdom for Hard Times.”

While still fully affirming the reality of overshoot and the collapse of what he calls TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), his emphasis in this new video is “post doom, no gloom.”

Dowd’s main point is that we humans today should not deny what we find disturbing or frightening but fully accept reality. In his opinion, formed by extensive reading of scientists and informed thinkers, the predicament of overshoot and collapse of the world’s civilization is certainly real.

So, acceptance of reality means making the most of the present rather than holding on to hope of change for the better in the future. Accordingly, he speaks pointedly about hopium, that is, holding on to false hopes that prevents us from accepting reality.

Memento mori for us individuals means that we live as meaningfully and as purposefully as possible now, fully realizing that we will die at some point in the future.

Rightly understood, memento mori is not a morbid dwelling on our approaching death, whenever that may be, but a healthy emphasis on living life to the fullest today, and every day.

Perhaps this significant idea needs to be applied more broadly: since the collapse of the world as we know it is inevitable, we need to make our existence in this world now as meaningful as possible, living in this post-doom time with no gloom.

This is a fruitful way for us older people to think. But what about our grandchildren (a disturbing matter I plan to write about next month)?

In spite of all I have learned from Michael Dowd, I have a couple of lingering questions/criticisms of his central emphases.

1) He repeatedly talks about the collapse of more than 100 civilizations in the past, emphasizing that the current industrial civilization’s collapse will be similar to those. But it seems to me that his point would be made more strongly if he talked more clearly about the uniqueness of TEOTWAWKI.

None of the collapsed civilizations of the past were as global in scope as the impending collapse, which could—and likely will!—mean a “mass extinction.” According to National Geographic, there have been five mass extinctions in the history of the earth; the sixth has already started.**

The Nat Geo article says the sixth mass extinction may occur as soon as 2260; Dowd says it is most likely to occur in this century. so why, I wonder, does he repeatedly emphasize the collapse of human civilizations in the past 4,000 years, none of which, obviously, led to mass human extinction.

2) Dowd repetitively emphasizes the futile nature of all human efforts to prevent collapse. All current attempts to stem global warming are based on the belief—or at least the hope—that that activity can and will result in reversal of collapse. Dowd refers to all such efforts as hopium.

But even if all human actions are insufficient to deter mass extinction, which they probably are, surely that doesn’t mean that concerted efforts would not postpone that fate to some extent, and maybe even significantly.

Concern for my grandchildren and now for my two great-grandchildren, makes me want to do more to help push as far into the future as possible what might well be sure mass extinction.

If we take seriously memento mori as individuals, we still do what we can to postpone our death, which is sure to occur at some point.

Similarly, if we apply the concept of memento mori to the present world civilization, shouldn’t we wholeheartedly do all we can to delay the coming collapse/extinction for as long as possible?

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* Last year I mentioned Dowd in four blog posts; the first times are here and here.

**The last mass extinction occurred about 66 million years ago, long before the first civilization of homo sapiens, which began less than 4,500 years ago. 

Händel’s “Messiah”: Words of Comfort and Hope

George Frideric Händel’s Messiah oratorio is said to be “the most famous piece of sacred music in the English language.” The world premiere of that masterpiece was 280 years ago, on April 13, 1742, at a concert hall in Dublin, Ireland.  

A Bit about Händel

The man whom Beethoven claimed was “the greatest composer that ever lived” was born in Halle, a major city in what is now Germany, on February 23, 1685. (I remember his birthday every year because my dear granddaughter Naomi was born on Feb. 23.)

Despite his father’s objection, Händel became a musician, and even though he was fairly successful in what is now Germany and Italy, in the 1710s he settled permanently in Great Britain, becoming a naturalized citizen there in 1727.

In October that year, he provided four anthems for the coronation of George II. The year before King George’s death, Händel died on April 14, 1759, and was buried in Westminster Cathedral.

A Bit about “Hallelujah Chorus”

By far, the best-known part of Messiah, Händel’s superlative oratorio, is the “Hallelujah Chorus.” It comes at the end of Part Two, the 44^th of the 53 movements. The lyrics of Messiah are all directly from the King James Bible, and the words of the Chorus come from Revelation 19:6, 11:15, and 19:16

During the London performance of Messiah in 1743, King George is said to have stood up during the “Hallelujah Chorus.” And when the king stands, everyone in his presence must stand! And so, for more than 275 years now, the audience rises to their feet when the “Hallelujah Chorus” is sung.

In her book Facing Apocalypse (2021), theologian Catherine Keller tells of hearing the entire Messiah performed live in Carnegie Hall—and that takes time. The complete oratorio is about two hours and 20 minutes. long, but with applause and two brief intermissions, it is closer to two hours and 45 minutes.

Keller said she was caught off guard when the “secular, cosmopolitan, diverse” audience, including some Jewish friends she was with, “sprang to its feet for the whole of the Hallelujah Chorus” (p. 134).

Comfort and Hope in Messiah

Although performances of Händel’s Messiah are common in December (before Christmas), they are also numerous on the days before Easter. There are many scheduled across the country for tomorrow, Palm Sunday.

For example, First Presbyterian Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, will perform Messiah on Sunday afternoon—and it will be their 75^th year in a row to do that.

While Messiah is primarily about Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, it begins with words of prophecy from the Old Testament.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.

These words from Isaiah 40:1-2 are, indeed, words expressing comfort and hope, words that were greatly encouraging when they were first written—or sung at the first public performance of Messiah in 1742. And how we need words of comfort and encouragement in this present day!

Part Three of Messiah (movements 45~53) is about resurrection—and thus the basis for public performances at Eastertime. The very next movement after the Hallelujah Chorus begins with words from Job 19:25-26 and I Corinthians 15:20:

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep.

During these troublesome days in which we now live, may the events we celebrate at Easter (whether we fully comprehend them or not), aided by the words and music of Händel’s marvelous Messiah, help each of us embrace the comfort and hope we so badly need.

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** Here is the link to a YouTube recording of Part Three of Messiah (with the lyrics shown instead of the singers.) And this link shows the score with the words as they are being sung. 

Remembering Flannery, Gloria, & Aretha: In Observance of Woman’s History Month

Flannery O’Connor, Gloria Steinem, and Aretha Franklin were distinctly different, but all three are definitely worth remembering in Women’s History Month (March) as they embodied this year’s theme, “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.”

These three outstanding women are especially worth remembering today as all three were born on March 25: Flannery in 1925, Gloria in 1934, and Aretha in 1942.

Remembering Flannery O’Connor

Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Georgia and had a short, difficult, and productive life before dying at the early age of 39 in 1964.

In 1949 while living in New York City and making her mark as a promising young writer, she was diagnosed with lupus. Consequently, she moved back to her mother’s home in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Even though she continued to write, gradually she was able to work only two hours and then only one hour a day. Yet, she completed two novels and 32 short stories. Wise Blood, her first novel was published in 1952, and “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” her best-known short story, the following year.

O’Connor was a woman of strong religious faith, and she is widely considered the best Catholic woman author of the 20^th century. God’s grace was an underlying theme of her writing.

One of O’Connor’s well-known statements is, “People without hope not only don’t write novels but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.”

Remembering Gloria Steinem

Despite a humble Ohio childhood, Gloria Steinem graduated magna cum laude from prestigious Smith College in 1956 and earned the Chester Bowles Fellowship, which enabled her to spend two life-changing years in India.

Steinem’s essay about her hopes for the future of women was published in the Aug. 31, 1970, issue of Time magazine. Here is the link to the March 5, 2020, issue of Time that reprints the original essay with Steinem’s comments 50 years later.

Indeed, for more than 50 years Steinem has pursued healing the of gender, ethnic, and other factors that have separated people, favoring some (men, Whites, etc.) to the detriment of others (women, Blacks, etc.). The world is better off because of her ground-breaking and ongoing lifework.

Steinem’s contributions were recognized when she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama ten years later.

Her book The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! was published by Random House in 2019 (when she was 85!). Singer and actress Janelle Monáe dubbed it a “fearless book full of passion, resolute perspective, and unbiased hope for the future.”**

Remembering Aretha Franklin

Though born in Memphis, after age five Aretha grew up in Detroit where her father was pastor of the influential New Bethel Baptist Church from 1946 to 1979.

Respect, a 2021 “biographical musical drama film,” features “Ree” (Aretha) from 1952 to 1972. “Respect” was the song recorded in February 1967 that became her first #1 hit song. And, indeed, much of her early life was seeking respect as an African American and as a woman.

But she was not seeking respect for just herself, “Respect” became a demand for gender and racial equality and has been both a civil rights and a feminist anthem. About a year ago Rolling Stone selected the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,”—and “Respect” was #1 on that list.

Franklin’s life illustrates this year’s Women’s History Month theme. In August 2018, the month she died, The Guardian posted an article titled Aretha Franklin: a life of heartbreak, heroism and hope.

The climax of the movie Respect shows her healing in 1972 as she powerfully sang “Amazing Grace” as it was being recorded. It became the highest-selling album of her career with over two million copies sold in the U.S.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee three days this week, is poised to become the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. That possibility is due in part to the ground-breaking work of Gloria and Aretha.

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** The 2020 film The Glorias, based on Steinem’s autobiographical book, My Life on the Road (2015), “weaves a compelling, nontraditional tapestry of one of the most inspirational and legendary figures in modern history.” It is well worth seeing and is available free for those who have Amazon Prime and available for $6-7 on other streaming services.

~&~ Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian woman who is a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian, has authored a highly acclaimed book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (2021), which I mention here because the subtitle echoes the theme of this year’s Women’s History Month. 

Do Hope and History Rhyme? Assessing Biden’s First Year

It’s been a hard year since January 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46^th POTUS—and it has been a harder year for him than for most of us. What can be said, fairly and honestly, in assessment of Biden’s first year in the White House? 

1/7/22 image by Mandel Ngan

Biden’s Quote from Seamus Heaney

The President is said to be five-eighths Irish and has spoken frequently of his family ties to Ireland. He also likes Irish poets, especially Seamus Heaney (1939~2013), who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In his inaugural speech a year ago today, the new President cited these words from Heaney’s poem “The Cure of Troy”:

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

These are memorable words, and Biden quoted them with great sincerity (and you can hear him read those words here), but one year later it seems as though the hopes of the President are far from rhyming with history now.

Biden’s Hard Year

As is true of each new President, except perhaps for #45, they start their term in office with high hopes for what they want to accomplish for the good of the nation. But those hopes are seldom realized (thus, history says, Don’t hope).

Perhaps the last President to have come close to realizing his inaugural hopes was FDR. Especially during the first two terms of his presidency (1933~1941), hope and history did rhyme to a large extent.

Roosevelt’s third inaugural address, though, delivered 80 years to the day before Biden’s address last year, was a lifetime ago. Few remember those remarks stressing America’s obligation to take action during the international crisis. Those next 4+ years were especially hard for FDR.

But for Biden, the first year has been a hard one:

* The covid-19 pandemic, with its new variants and the widespread refusal of being vaccinated, worsened instead of dissipating.

* Largely related to disruptions caused by covid-19, inflation grew rapidly and consumer prices increased perceptibly.

* Because of the intransigence of all 50 Republican and of two Democratic Senators, a democracy-protecting voting rights bill and an expansive infrastructure bill both failed to gain the support necessary for enactment.

* The events surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan were widely criticized as Biden’s debacle.

* The Jan. 15 issue of The Economist states that Biden is “almost the most unpopular president since records began” (only Trump “rated worse” at the same point in his term). Accordingly, “a mid-terms shellacking for his party looks highly probable.”

Biden’s Hope in the Year(s) Ahead

One year doesn’t make or break a presidency. In spite of the setbacks and disappointments, there are first-year accomplishments that the President and his party can legitimately accentuate in the year ahead.

* The early rollout of vaccines was highly successful. (It was certainly not Biden’s fault that so many people, mostly Republicans, refused to get vaccinated—or that new variants, delta and then omicron, developed.)

* Early in his tenure Biden also won passage for a roughly $2 trillion stimulus package and followed that with enactment of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with bipartisan support.

* Also, as Heather Cox Richardson points out, last February the jobless rate was 6.2%; today it has dropped to 4.2%. This means the Biden administration has created 4.1 million jobs, more than were created in the 12 years of the Trump and George W. Bush administrations combined.**

* Further, according to a 12/20/21 Bloomberg News article, “America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden's first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years . . . “ The S&P 500 gained 26.9% and Dow Jones gained 18.7% in 2021.

Perhaps if the President stays the course and “soldiers on,” as James Carville admonished him to do this week on Meet the Press, the longed-for tidal wave of justice will yet rise up, and hope and history will begin to rhyme more and more.

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** This, and much more about Biden’s first year accomplishments, is found in Richardson’s 12/22/21 “letter” (see here).

From the C.S.A. to the R.S.A.?

As you know, C.S.A. stands for the Confederate States of America, which was formed 160 years ago. Here I am raising the question of whether now in the 2020s the U.S.A. may be headed toward becoming the R.S.A., the Republican States of America.

The Forming of the C.S.A.

In February 1861, seven U.S. states formed a new “nation,” calling it the Confederate States of America. Those states were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Four more states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) joined the C.S.A. later.

Back in 2004, Kansas University professor Kevin Willmott was the director and writer of the movie C.S.A. It was a “mockumentary” that portrayed an alternate history wherein the Confederacy won the Civil War and the Union became the Confederate States of America. 

Although it is certainly not depicted in the same way as in Willmott’s movie, American historian Heather Cox Richardson has authored a book titled How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (2020).

I have been on the waiting list for a library copy of Richardson’s book, so I have not read any of it yet—but I read her daily “Letters from an American,” which can be accessed here, and have learned much about U.S. history from her. (I highly recommend her daily “letter.”)

As depicted both in the creative movie and the historical book mentioned above, it is clear that the influence of the C.S.A. certainly did not end with its defeat at the end of the Civil War.

The Forming of the R.S.A.?

The influence of the C.S.A. seems to be “alive and well” in much of the Republican Party today. All the C.S.A. states of the 1860s voted for Trump in 2016 and all except Georgia did the same in 2020—although to this day Trump and a majority of Republicans believe the election there was “stolen.”

This article is not a condemnation of the Republican Party as such. The country needs a strong two-party system, with moderate Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats for the good of all who live in the nation—as well as for the good of the people of the world.

Oligarchy is “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” (Merriam-Webster). Sadly, this seems to be the direction the Republican Party has been moving, especially since 2016.

Thus, I am writing this in opposition to the Republican politicians who seem to be greedy for power and willing to do anything necessary to achieve or maintain political power, even if it means largely destroying democracy.

Even though I think they are mistaken, we have to acknowledge that on the other side there are many supporters of the Republican Party who sincerely believe that the Democrats are “enemies,” and that drastic means may be necessary to save the country from tyranny and/or from “socialism.”

The power-hungry Republicans, beginning with Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell, seem to have done a good job in selling their skewed views to the Republican base, with the considerable help they have received from Fox News and their “opinion-makers” such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

Through voter suppression, gerrymandering, and voting results controlled by state legislatures, Republicans may well gain the majority in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. Those victories may be semi-permanent, leading to the forming of a de facto R.S.A., even if that name is not used.**

So, What Can Be Done?

If we want the USA to survive and not become the RSA, what can we do? Here are three succinct suggestions:

1) Keep advocating truth-telling, civilly opposing falsehoods and misleading statements, always championing peace and justice.

2) Keep voting for political leaders most concerned for the welfare of the populace, especially of those most oppressed by social or economic discrimination.

3) Keep being hopeful, firm in your belief that, in time, “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,” as expressed in Longfellow’s Christmas carol.

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** I hadn’t seen Republican States of America used anywhere until after I had finished writing this article, but here is what I then found in a 5/7/21 Washington Post piece: “Trump has emerged from his West Palm Beach hibernation — refashioning himself as the president of the Republican States of America.”

Hopeful, But Not Optimistic

A good friend recently wrote, “My usual optimism is fading.” I responded, “I am sorry to hear that your optimism is waning—but that is not necessarily a bad thing, for it is better to be realistic than optimistic. And don’t give up hope; there is a difference between hope and optimism.”

So, what is that difference, and can a person actually be hopeful but not optimistic?

Defining Terms

Some definitions of optimism and hope sound as if they are synonyms. Here is the definition from Dictionary.com for optimism: “a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.”

By contrast, hope means to work for and to wait for something with the confident expectation and anticipation that it will at some point, sooner or later, be fulfilled.

Optimism is an aspect of a person’s disposition or temperament. People with a sunny temperament are usually optimists, people with dark dispositions are mostly pessimists.

Hope, though, is a theological virtue. As Jim Wallis writes in his 2019 book Christ in Crisis, hope “is not simply a feeling, or a mood . . . . It is a choice, a decision, an action based on faith. . . . Hope is the engine of change. Hope is the energy of transformation” (p. 264).

Later in that book, Wallis reiterates what he has often said: “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change” (p. 281).

And here are wise words from an Irish poet: 

So, yes, a person can be hopeful even if he/she is not optimistic. Thus, I like what Black theologian/philosopher Cornel West tweeted back in January 2013: “I cannot be optimistic but I am a prisoner of hope.”

Emphasizing Action

A key difference between optimism and hope, as defined/described above, is this: optimism doesn’t demand anything of us (everything is going to be all right!), but hope entails effort as we endeavor to actualize that for which we hope.

Like the Kingdom of God, hope also demands that we work for what we hope for, knowing that it might well be a long time before that hope will be realized.

The New Testament says that “now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13, NRSV). But faith and hope are a close third and second.

Further, the New Testament also declares that “faith without actions is dead” (James 2:26, Common English Bible). But isn’t it true to say that not just faith, but both love and hope without actions are also dead?

Love is not simply a feeling or an emotion. It is often said that "love is a verb,” and I believe that is true. Love is something that is best expressed not in words, but in action.

And so it is with hope.

Assessing the Future

So, linking this to my 10/25 post, what about the future of this country under the current President and Congress?

To be honest, I am not very optimistic about this year’s pending legislation or about the elections of 2022 or 2024. But I am hopeful for the future. If this year’s legislation doesn’t turn out well, I will do what little I can to help elect better members of Congress in 2022.

And if the elections of 2022 turn out to be a disappointment, again I will do what little I can to elect the best President and Congress possible in 2024.

If the latter is also a disappointment, then I will begin working for 2028 (although there may be little I can do, for that is the year I turn 90, if I make it that far).

Regardless of what happens, though, I will continue to be hopeful, believing that things will get better later, if not sooner. That is because I trust in the “God of hope.” Accordingly, these words from Romans 15:13 (NIV) is my prayer for all of you. 

Is E Pluribus Unum Viable Now?

In 1776, two centuries and 45 years ago, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson proposed a Great Seal for the United States. The only words on the proposed seal were E PLURIBUS UNUM, a Latin phrase meaning “one from many.”  

Viable for the United States?

According to the E Pluribus Unum Project of Assumption College (now University), e pluribus unum “offered a strong statement of the American determination to form a single nation from a collection of states.”

That phrase also indicates “America's bold attempt to make one unified nation of people from many different backgrounds and beliefs. The challenge of seeking unity while respecting diversity has played a critical role in shaping our history, our literature, and our national character.”

But is that motto still viable in the U.S.? After all these years, it seems that the nation is hardly one/unified on anything.

Oneness/unity does not depend on sameness or the denial of differences. But surely it does mean having mutual respect for those with whom we disagree and treating each other civilly. In addition, any sense of unity means people with differing views working together for the common good.

Originally, I was intending to list some of the great political, social, and religious differences now harmfully dividing USAmerican society. But perhaps those divisions are too evident to need further elaboration here.

Viable for the World?

This blog post was largely prompted by the ubuntu emphasis on the inherent oneness of humanity, which I wrote about on April 24. Even though a South African word and concept in its origin, proponents of ubuntu now speak of “the global family” and the basic oneness of humankind.

There have been many individuals and organizations longing for and working for the idea expressed by e pluribus unum to be descriptive of the whole human race.

The World Federalist Movement and One World, one of its associate members, are good examples.

The latter says on its website, “Inspired by such visionaries as Einstein and Gandhi, we regard inclusive federal democracy at the global level as a necessary precondition for justice, peace and prosperity for all of humanity.”

And they cite these words spoken by Einstein in 1945: “With all my heart I believe that the world’s present system of sovereign nations can only lead to barbarism, war, and inhumanity. Mankind’s desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.”

That assertion takes the idea of e pluribus unum to a whole new level.

What Can We Hope For?

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Those words, based on a statement by Theodore Parker, a 19th-century clergyman, were most notably emphasized by MLK, Jr. and later by President Obama. They have been powerful words of encouragement for many justice-seekers.

But I wonder if we can also say that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward unity/oneness. Teilhard de Chardin wrote about the universe moving to a future Omega Point, meaning that everything is spiraling towards a final point of unification.

In a helpful February 20 article, a religion professor in South Africa wrote,

As a philosopher and theologian, [Teilhard] developed a unique synthesis of science and religion based on an evolutionary understanding of what he called the ‘cosmic Christ’ – the idea that the universe and everything in it is constantly moving towards a point of perfection defined by unity and love.

That is what Teilhard later called the Omega Point. And that is why the author titled her article, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: prophet of cosmic hope .

Well, whether considering the current situation here in the U.S. or the world as a whole, it is abundantly evident we still have a long way to go. Omega of course is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and it seems that at present we may be no further than at beta (the second letter).

Still, grounded in cosmic hope, we can dream of and diligently work for the goal of e pluribus unum not only in the U.S. but for the whole world.

In Admiration of Beethoven and His Ninth Symphony

The great musical genius Ludwig van Beethoven was born 250 years ago this month. Although I made a blog post about Beethoven in 2017, I am writing about him again, and especially about his marvelous Ninth Symphony.

Here is the image of his portrait that Joseph Karl Stieler painted 200 years ago, in 1820, when Beethoven was 50 years old: 

Composing the Ninth

Beethoven’s compositions consist of 722 works written over forty-five years, from his earliest work in 1782, when he was only twelve years old, until his last work just before he died in Vienna in 1827.

Beginning with Symphony No. 1, which was first performed in 1800, Beethoven composed nine symphonies. He composed No. 9, also called the “Choral” Symphony, between 1822 and 1824.

His Ninth Symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven's greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music.

One remarkable aspect of Beethoven’s composition of the Ninth Symphony is that he was completely deaf during that time. He began to lose his hearing when he was still in his early 30s, and by 1815 he was totally deaf.

How one of the world’s greatest composers could write his greatest work, a complete four-part symphony, while being totally deaf is almost beyond comprehension.

Performing the Ninth

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was first performed in Vienna in 1824, and since then it has been one of the most performed symphonies in the world.

At that initial performance, it seems that Beethoven was not the main conductor, but he was on the stage facing the orchestra. When the performance concluded, the contralto went over to Beethoven and turned him toward the loudly cheering audience, whom he could not hear.

The Ninth is still being performed by premier orchestras around the world—and a number of those performances are, happily, available on YouTube.

In preparation for writing this article, I listened to the performances of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO, here), which has been viewed over 25,600,000 times since 2015, and the (audio only) London Symphony Orchestra (here), accessed an inexplicable 106 million times since 2010.

There is a long tradition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony being performed in Japan since it was first introduced there by German prisoners during WWI. The CSO’s website reports that in 2016 the Ninth was performed 175 times in Japan.

In Osaka, there is now a 20-year-old tradition of performing Beethoven’s Ninth with 10,000 musicians! (Here is the link to the fourth movement of their 2012 performance.)

Enjoying the Ninth

It is the fourth movement of Symphony No. 9 that makes it so enjoyable to so many people. In that movement, Beethoven used Friedrich Schiller’s 1785 poem "Ode to Joy,” in which he enthusiastically celebrated the kinship and unity of all humankind.

That fourth movement later morphed into one of my very favorite hymns, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee," the hymn text written by Henry van Dyke in 1907.

A year ago, there were plans for many performances of the Ninth in this 250^th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth, including a performance of “All Together: A Global Ode to Joy” in Carnegie Hall this month. But, alas, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused cancellations of most performances.

Nevertheless, thanks to the Internet, we can enjoy the Ninth in the comfort (and safety) of our own homes this month—and there are lessons we can learn from Beethoven along with enjoying his exquisite music.

A year ago, before the beginning of the pandemic, Arthur C. Brooks wrote about a lesson we can all learn from Beethoven: “Deafness freed Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had society’s soundtrack in his ears. Perhaps therein lies a lesson for each of us.”

Further, an article in the Nov. 21 issue of The Economist points out that, like the pandemic-hit celebrations of his 250^th birthday this year, Beethoven’s career was a struggle against adversity. Yet, “Fate has amplified Beethoven’s voice not as a struggler, but as a healer.”

So this month (and later), let’s listen expectantly (and repeatedly) to Beethoven’s stirring Ninth Symphony and enjoy deeply the encouragement found there, finding joy and hope despite the solemn times in which we now live.

A Resurrection-Shaped Life

In this article I am sharing some reflections on Episcopal Bishop Jake Owensby’s book, A Resurrection-Shaped Life: Dying and Rising on Planet Earth (2018), and relating it to my cousin who was buried yesterday.

Characteristics of a Resurrection-Shaped Life

1) Those who live a resurrection-shaped life are hopeful. Owensby’s slim book is neither directly about Jesus’ resurrection nor the resurrection of Jesus-believers in the future. Rather, it is about one’s manner of living in the here and now.

Owensby asserts that “it’s in the depths of loss and sorrow that hope brings us to new life” (p. 51). Jesus had said to his disciples, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matt. 5:4). Even though they did not understand this as they mourned Jesus’ crucifixion, they experienced that blessedness when Jesus was resurrected.

So, “the resurrection of Christ gives new meaning to our experience of grief” (p. 52). Those who live a resurrection-shaped life embrace, and are embraced by, the blessing of hope even in the midst of grief.

2) Those who live a resurrection-shaped life are joyful. Perhaps it is largely because of their hopeful attitude, a resurrection-shaped life is characterized by joy as well as by hope.

Owensby (b. 1957) doesn’t write much about joy in this book--except for his several references to Joy, which is his wife’s name. But joy definitely seems to be a by-product of a resurrection-shaped life.

The third chapter of Owensby’s book is “Recovering from Shame and Blame.” (I was pleasantly surprised to see this chapter just after posting my article about shame on April 5.) Those who live a resurrection-shaped life have learned to overcome shame. That is because, as Owensby writes,

Overcoming shame involves changing our minds about ourselves. And Jesus came in part to help us do precisely that. Jesus changes our minds about ourselves by changing our minds about God (p. 36).

3) Those who live a resurrection-shaped life are helpful. That is, they regularly engage in loving service.

To cite Owensby again,

Life centered on caring for ourselves turns to dust. A life devoted to the growth, nurture, and well-being of others stretches into eternity. A resurrection-shaped life is love in the flesh (p. 102).

And this gets us to my cousin Carolyn, who was my oldest first cousin on the Seat side of the family.  

The Resurrection-Shaped Life of Cousin Carolyn

Carolyn Houts passed away on April 12 and her funeral/burial was yesterday, on Good Friday. Carolyn, who celebrated her 77th birthday last month, died peacefully, sitting in a chair waiting for the delivery of her Meals on Wheels lunch.

After serving for nearly 34 years as a Southern Baptist missionary to Ghana, Carolyn retired in 2010 and had lived in Grant City, Missouri, since 2011. My blog article for 7/5/10 (see here) was about Cousin Carolyn, just as she was returning to the U.S., and I hope you will read it (again). 

Carolyn Houts (1942-2019)

As I said in the eulogy that I gave at her funeral yesterday, it seems quite clear to me that Carolyn lived a resurrection-shaped life. Hopefulness, joyfulness, and helpfulness were definitely characteristics of her life.

As we observe the celebration of Easter tomorrow—and I realize there will be a great variety in the way readers of this blog will celebrate Easter—my deepest prayer is that we all will not only know what a resurrection-shaped life means but will, in reality, be able to live such a life.

Happy Easter!

Beating Guns

For many years I have been an admirer of Shane Claiborne, author of several books and leader of “new monastic” Christians who go by the name The Simple Way in downtown Philadelphia. Last week I had the privilege of meeting Shane for the first time.

Beating Guns

Claiborne (b. 1975) is the author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (2006). That was the first book of his that I read, and I was very favorably impressed by it.

He also wrote, with Chris Haw, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (2008). That was also an impressive book. Two years later he wrote Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, which I have not yet read but have seen quoted often.

Mike Martin (b. 1982) is a Mennonite blacksmith from Colorado. He is the founder and Executive Director of an organization known as RAWtools. (Check out their attractive website here.)

Shane and Mike teamed up to write Beating Guns: Hope for People Who are Weary of Violence, a nearly 300-page book that was published last month. It is an attractive, challenging work worthy of serious consideration.

Beating Guns Tour

Currently, Shane and Mike are on a thirty-seven-city Beating Guns Tour. The 23^rd stop on that tour was in Kansas City, Kansas, on April 2. Their event there was held at the Rainbow Mennonite Church, where June and I are members, and it was a very engaging evening.

Here is the picture I took of Mike standing by the bus: 

And click here to see a video of Shane telling about that bus soon after they acquired it in November 2018.

The inside-the-church program was primarily an excellent presentation by Shane explaining the purpose of the Beating Guns Tour. It also featured a brief talk by Jamal Shakur who works for Kansas City in what is called the Aim4Peace program.

Outside, in the parking lot right behind the church building, they used their forge to heat the metal of a gun red hot. The metal was then placed on an anvil where several people, one after another, beat it with a hammer. Before the close of the event, the new garden tool, as you see below, was brought in for our admiration. 

Beating Guns into Garden Tools

One of my favorite sculptures was created by Arlie Regier (1931~2014), a member of Rainbow Mennonite Church. It is a “swords into plowshares” work which I wrote about (and included a picture of) in my 5/25/11 blog article.

Since there is not so much use of swords, or even plows, now, Shane & Mike’s emphasis is on guns and garden tools. While they certainly stress the problem of guns in USAmerican society, their primary opposition is to violence of all kinds.

Following the teachings of Jesus, they not only oppose the rampant violence of guns used for both homicides and suicides in this country, but they also speak out clearly and firmly against all war as well as capital punishment.

The tone of the book—and certainly the tone of the authors as they spoke to us last Tuesday evening—is not harsh. Shane and Mike don’t come across as strident or angry, but they do speak out forcefully—and also with a hopeful message.

In the words of the subtitle of their book, they, indeed, are seeking to foster “hope for people who are weary of violence.” They end their book with these words:

May we be the midwives of a better world—through our prayers, by our lives, and with our hammers.