Hope by William Klein

Blog HOPE by William Klein

I remember when I was teaching the theological virtues to my high school students how confused they were when I asked them to define the virtues. They had trouble identifying between faith and hope. They were lost in the abstraction and confused by hope. Isn’t being hopeful having wishful thinking?

No. It isn’t.  I could wish I have a million dollars, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. If I hope to have a million dollars, there’s promise or potential for it happening if I work hard, believe in myself, develop my skills and work towards making that happen. True, it may not happen, but there’s still a better chance. Hope is used for realistic situations whereas “wish” is used for unrealistic situations.

The Greek noun for hope is “elpis” meaning “favorable or confident expectations.”

Henri Nouwen says, “Hope expects the coming of something new. Hope looks ahead towards that which is not yet… Hope accepts and risks the unspecified. Underlying the idea of hope is a promise. There cannot be hope without a promise. We’re invited to see that we will fulfill the deepest needs of the heart.”

This makes sense to me. We all must recognize that we have witnessed “the promise” in some way.  In life we have experiences that point to success and know we are equipped to survive through the support of others. Nouwen says, “You can only hope if that which you’re hoping for has already touched you. The mystery of hope is that in a way you are aware of something that needs to be fulfilled and somewhere it has already touched a part of you. You can nurture the footprints of God in your heart…. Live with hope and you’re living in the present.”

That promise comes at a very young age. There is no love like a parent’s love. A good parent’s instinct is to protect her child, attend to his needs, and offers hope for the child’s future. As a child moves through life, hope is offered at every turn. The poorest of the poor are sometimes closer to it, because many have seen the miracles that present themselves in life and death situations. It’s been documented time and again.

For others, the constant battle to survive and dependence on constant miracles becomes too much and beats them down. They lose hope, and loss of hope creates a chasm or void of meaning. Viktor Frankl saw it in concentration camps. Those who lost hope died quicker than those who had something to live for. We are creatures of hope. No hope, no life. That’s why existentialism is so problematic. No hope, no aspiration to be anything.

From a Buddhist perspective, hope can appear problematic because it contains the object of desire and desire is a part of suffering. But the Dali Lama does not disregard hope. He realizes that it is an important component for our survival. The virtue requires us to realize the power of a promise. If happiness has been experienced, it can be experienced again. Therefore, hope is an essential component in the makeup of our being, because we have the potential to love.

I heard the story of a man who lost all hope. He was broken to the point where he lost all perspective and became addicted to drugs. His drug habit led to criminal activity and he ended up in jail.  He reached rock bottom. He said it was dark one night when he had an epiphany. The lights were out on the cell block and he cried into his hands. He quietly prayed and said, “God if you have something for me to do, please give me a sign that there’s hope.” As he was crying, a stream of moonlight creeped into his cell, and he first saw the sign of light in his fingers. It was the sign he needed. He turned his life around based on that single moment of hope.

Interesting how he first saw the sign of light in his fingers. It’s powerful when light outside ourselves connects and inspires something within us.

Hope is inextricably linked to faith. Through your hope, you gain faith and vice versa. I defined faith from Hebrews:  The author writes, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

St. Paul recognized the importance of hope as a theological virtue. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Why is love the greatest? Because love points to the promise. If we have experienced love in our lives, we know that love can center us in profound ways. 

Love is the common element that holds faith and hope together. At the most basic level of human existence, love is the most critical virtue in our existence because it feeds and nourishes both faith and hope.

It is the focus of love that helps us heal. It is the focus of love that helps us aspire to be more. It is the focus of love that raises the stakes of living for the general good of all. Love is the promise that is inherent in hope. If we know the potential for love, we can tap that potential in our being to help us arrive at an elevated consciousness. There is no greater hope in a being than the act of being loved.

Dr. Gerald G. May, says it at the end of his book, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” “True love is like some infinite way of being that we become a part of: a flowing energy of willingness, an eternal yes resounding with every heartbeat. And contemplative hope, the transformed hope, is also completely open and free. It is not hope forpeace, justice or healing; that also would be attachment. It is just hope, a naked hope, a bare energy of open expectancy.”