Some days ago I was sitting on our back deck—one of my favorite places in the whole world—soaking up the sunshine on a cold February day, watching gratefully as our two dogs wandered about our spacious, fenced-in back yard in the privacy made possible by the “green screen” provided by the semi-circle of trees that surround it and that are topped by the view of the mountains in the distance.  It was one of those rare days the past several weeks when constant and often heavy rains had relented to make this reverie possible, and I found myself thinking, “Gee, I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.” 

Such a simple and common thing to think or say and yet somehow the word “hope” stuck in my mind. Over the next several days I found myself thinking about how often we hope, consciously or unconsciously, for things small—a day without rain—and large—recovery from a serious illness—until it became one of those “termites in my brain” that wouldn’t leave me alone.  Thus the emergence, over time, of these reflections on this oh-so-common human experience.

So, first, some observations about hope and its role in the lives of all of us—some coming from my own ruminations, some from some reading and “poking around”—before I turn to a few personal experiences.

The first question, I suppose, is whether hope is a good thing or not. Willem Jacob Verdenius (in his Commentary on Hesiod, 1985) poses the question this way: is hope to be regarded as “a comfort to man in his misery and a stimulus rousing his activity,” or as an “idle hope in which the lazy man indulges when he should be working honestly for his living?”  He stakes out a stark contrast!  Does hope sometimes become a sort of “sedative” and a substitute for effort?  Of course it does, but in my opinion and in my experience, that is not the dominant role it plays in the lives of most people and doesn’t qualify as sufficient reason to brand hope as a negative or evil quality.

While Verdanius does not seem to come down on either side of the enigma he poses, I’ll cite a philosopher who does. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant says that the question, “For what may I hope?” is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy, after “What can I know?” and “What should I do?” To choose “hope” to stand alongside the primary questions of epistemology and axiology/ethics is no small matter. And it may certainly be justified.

I would argue that hope is a part of everyone’s life—it’s an inherent element of being a human being. Everyone hopes for something and hope in general usually means a desire for things to change for the better.

People who find themselves in difficult circumstances hope to get out of them and even envisioning something hopeful that is out of one’s control can make present difficulties easier to bear. According to a study by the American Psychology Association, children who grew up in poverty but had success later in life all had one thing in common – hope.

Which brings us to a distinction that needs to be made between two kinds of hope:

• Hope for something that lies at least partially and reasonably within our power to bring about, and
• Hope for something that lies completely or mostly beyond our ability to make happen.

Our lives are replete with both kinds.

The first kind of hope—what we might call “reasonable hope”—is grounded in a trust in one’s capacity to bring about the desired outcome. To have this kind of hope is to want an outcome that makes our life better in some way. We have a vision for what we hope will happen and if it’s something we can somewhat control, envisioning a better future can motivate us to take whatever steps we need to take to bring it about.

Scott Barry Kaufman, in a piece entitled “The Will and Ways of Hope,” argues that talent, skills, and ability—as important and helpful as they are—will not enable someone to reach their goals. He says that a wealth of psychological research over the past few decades shows loud and clear that it’s what he calls “the psychological vehicles” that really get someone where they want to go. As he puts it, “You can have the best engine in the world, but if you can’t be bothered to drive it, you won’t get anywhere.”

He points out that psychologists have proposed lots of different “vehicles” over the years, such as grit, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, optimism, passion, inspiration, etc. In an op ed piece in the New York Times, David Brooks made a similar case for what he called “soft skills,” such as leadership, communication, and collaboration.

While I never thought of the term, “vehicles,” I have maintained for many years—and indeed did so again in a blog posted over a year ago—that among the benefits of a liberal arts education is gaining not only “knowledge,” but a set of “skills” valued by employers, e.g. thoughtfulness, creativity, persistence, initiative, openness to new ideas, etc. 

All of them are important, Kaufman says, but one vehicle is particularly undervalued and underappreciated in psychology and society. And that is hope.  It had never occurred to me to add hope to my list!  Is it important enough in this context that I should have done so?

Well, Kaufman says it is. Life is difficult enough that, with so many obstacles out there, having goals is not sufficient. One has to keep getting closer to those goals, amidst all the inevitable twists and turns of life. Hope, he suggests, allows people to approach problems with a mindset and strategy-set that increases the chances that they will actually accomplish their goals.

We like to think that current ability is the best predictor of future success, and ability is important, but Kaufman’s argument is that it’s the “vehicles” that actually get people where they want to go.  And hope, he posits, is one of the most important vehicles of them all.  I tend to agree.

Now, however, we turn, if more briefly, to that second kind of hope for something that lies completely or mostly beyond our ability to make happen—we don’t have a “vehicle” to get us there.And if circumstances are dire enough, even hope may be overcome.  As a case in point, notice this quotation from an article in the February 29^th edition of the Huffington Post on the current spread of the coronavirus: “Uncertainty turned to fear . . . as the virus dashed hopes of containment. ‘Fear is a stronger emotion than hope,’ said Ann Miletti of Wells Fargo Asset Management” (Emphasis mine).  Could she be right?  Perhaps.  And yet we can, and often do, hope for outcomes that are out of our reach, even some that one considers to be very unlikely.

Sometimes hope, like faith, is having belief in something that isn’t seen.  When people speak about hope in a spiritual context, it might mean believing good things will happen with faith in a higher power. They might, therefore, direct their hopes outward in prayer. When that is so, the object of hope is usually definitive—one is praying “for something”—healing for a sick friend, salvation for “the lost,” guidance for making some crucial decision, peace in the world, etc.

But this kind of hope can also occur outside a spiritual context.  For some it might simply mean always looking, in general, on the bright side, “hoping for the best.” For others, hope may be directed toward things as specific as those that are being prayed for, but without confidence in divine assistance. 

It is this kind of hope that tends to carry the most risk, because the outcome hoped for is out of our reach, beyond our control, and even if one believes in a benevolent “answerer of prayer,” sometimes the response may be “wait,” or a different answer than expected, or even “No.”  And yet, such hopes, religious or secular, are alive and pervasive in human lives and, risk factors aside, can be a positive force in some people’s lives. 

Take just one example from this “hope genre:” the hope for “life after death” in its many iterations—

• from the highly literalized “walking the golden streets,”
• to a more spiritualized presence with the Divine Being and loved ones,
• to the secularized notion of “absorption” in the natural universe—

is one of the most tenacious of human longings. While some religious traditions would place achievement of this hope within human grasp based upon a faith commitment or upon a variously defined righteous life, others would see this hope as a “gift” lying completely outside our reach.

And yet a belief in that “something beyond” can, for some, make the prospect of their own death and the loss of loved ones more bearable—

• just read a few obituaries from today’s newspaper: “went to her heavenly home,” “went to be with his Lord and Savior,” “passed into heaven to join her husband,” “transcended to eternal life in heaven to be with the Lord,” “entered into heaven’s gates.”
• Or, in a very different kind of hope, consider these lines from a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain

When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft, soft starlight at night.

And so for many, that expectation of an existence of some kind beyond the grave can make life with all of its ups and downs more positive, more hopeful.

In a second post to follow, I’ll share some of my own experiences with the various kinds and the various results of hope in my life.  I hope (there it is again!) that you will stay tuned.