Three Aspirations

Presence, Humility, and Hope

I admit I am somewhat confused by the terms “spiritual optimism” and “spiritual pessimism.” Therefore, I will begin by contrasting the words optimism and hope. I use an informal definition of optimism: a good feeling about the future based on reliable information. I do not see either optimism or pessimism as choices; rather, I see them as the product of evaluation. And I offer an equally broad definition of hope: a good feeling about the future based on what is beyond my knowing, control, or manipulation.

In practice, I refer to my consistent lack of optimism about the world, which lies within the many critiques of capitalism. And I perceive capitalism to drive attitudes of greed, dominance, and disregard. I choose to devote my life to mitigating these impacts. Conversely, hope, my essential orientation toward life, is rooted in my faith in a benevolent and caring God who desires that our “joy may be made complete” (John 15:11).

With optimism, there is a natural bias toward control and success, a bias to fulfilling your optimistic goals. In science, this is called “confirmation bias.” With hope, there is a similarly innate bias, but it is toward surrender and acceptance. Ideally, these are aspects of trust, the opposite of control.

The problem arises when we react to any pressure with optimism, as this can lead to false forms of optimism, such as willingly clinging to chosen ignorance (e.g., ignoring statistics of child poverty in the world) or repeating empty slogans like “it’s all good” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” Whether such words from time to time describe reality is irrelevant. They are nothing more than assertions and have no factual nexus. They compete with hope for attention. And all this produces the significant risk of ignoring hope itself: Everything is going to be fine, so who needs hope?

The problem arises when we react to any pressure with optimism, as this can lead to false forms of optimism, such as willingly clinging to chosen ignorance or repeating empty slogans. They compete with hope for attention. And all this produces the significant risk of ignoring hope itself.

And so, I turn to the biblical tradition of lament: a lost and forgotten art and practice? In Born from Lament, Emmanuel Katongole, who writes about lament in the context of present-day Africa, suggests that “the notion of lament held the key to a full explication of the nature and reality of hope.” Katongole traveled to Eastern Congo and Northern Uganda “to collect poems, songs and artistic pieces,” which all communicated the common experience of lament. His research included leading Bible studies on the Book of Lamentations among victims of violence in the Great Lakes Region of Eastern Africa, where leaders “were immediately able to identify with the plight and lament of Daughter Zion.” Katongole’s central argument is that “in the midst of suffering, hope takes the form of arguing and wrestling with God.” He explains:

If we understand it as lament, such arguing and wrestling with God is not merely a sentiment, not merely a cry of pain. It is a way of mourning, of protesting to, appealing to, and engaging God—and a way of acting in the midst of ruins.

In considering this perspective laid out by Katongole, one might see the danger arising from adopting a “spiritual optimism” that would shortcut the process he describes.

Trying to follow Katongole’s path to hope, I turn to the writing of Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall, who contrasts hope and cynicism in his 1989 essay “Invitation to Theology”:

The cynic can carry on nicely within the officially optimistic society, mouthing the necessary platitudes and going through the motions of business, professional and social life. An unspoken convention in the public realm anticipates and even encourages these attitudes in persons. The open articulation of cynicism is contrary to the social code. But the living of cynicism is a well-documented phenomenon in North America today.

What an embarrassing revelation! We live in a culture that forbids cynicism by word yet encourages it by example. If we see cynicism as antithetical to hope, we live in an intolerable time: bouncing back and forth between optimism and pessimism, flitting between places of willful ignorance and despairing cynicism. Cynicism is an ineffective—if not outright false—defence to despair, enabling us to sidestep away. By contrast, lament leads us deeper into despair. And hope then draws us forward and upward from our lament.

I had a colleague, Yoshi Masaki, who was born and raised in a Christian family in Japan in the years leading to and through World War II. Even as a child, the idea that a Christian nation could drop an atom bomb on his homeland took as much of his attention as the devastation itself. One day, Yoshi drew a simple two-lined picture of a fish. His drawing looked like both the universal Christian symbol and the atom bomb. He had to hold these two experiences together. He saw the United States as dominated by Christians who embodied God’s love. And he experienced the most devastating military strike of all human history coming from that same country. Yoshi’s fish is vertical with its mouth pointing down, accentuating its likeness to a bomb and representing his path down to despair on one side and then up the other side with hope and his desire to remain a Christian. For Yoshi, it was not a matter of choosing between theological pessimism or theological optimism but the absolute need to choose both despair and hope and to continue to live his life.

I know what I have done here, and I expect you do, too. I have chosen an example from a continent continually devastated by war to depict lament and hope. I used an example of a devastated island in East Asia to highlight another path of descent and rebirth. And I used an illustration written by a Canadian to describe my world, swirling around in denial and cynicism. I claim that these are fair choices, not to make sweeping, continental generalizations, but to compare and highlight the options that we all share as we approach all things.

There is no need to either puff yourself up with optimism or beat yourself down with pessimism.

In its Faith and Practice, Central and Southern African Yearly Meeting offers the following advice on how to live adventurously:

No matter how difficult the circumstances, look for the good and positive in everyday life. Face the reality of sorrow and hardship, but make a conscious choice to live with joy, encouraging those around you.

While suggesting that living with joy is a conscious choice, it is a joy that must be tested by the daily reality of sorrow and hardship. The two forces are constantly in motion, one with the other: weaving, dancing, vaulting? Use the metaphor that works for you as you try to keep the dialectical balance a fruitful one.

We also have advice from Ohio Yearly Meeting’s Book of Discipline:

Follow steadfastly after all that is pure and lovely and of good report. Be prayerful. Be watchful. Be humble. Let no failure discourage you. When temptation comes, make it an opportunity to gain new strength by standing fast, that you may enter into that life of gladness and victory to which all are called.

The positivity described by this advice is neither claimed nor simply assigned: we gain it. What is more, we gain it through temptation, defeat, and failure. We gain it by touching pain with love; living with the consequences of that choice; and then surrendering the result of such efforts, being neither optimistic nor pessimistic but rather only present, humble, and hopeful. There is no need to either puff yourself up with optimism or beat yourself down with pessimism.

And lastly, I offer the riddle of my life: How is it that I can “give thanks in all circumstances, as advised in 1 Thess. 5:18? I am enabled by surrendering outcomes and sinking to a place where the only response to our hurtful world is one of lament, knowing the promise of hope will always abide.