In this final post on Hope, I’ll share some of the things I’ve hoped for, how they differed from one another, and how they turned out.

Let me begin with this quotation, which is something I could have—and wish I had—written: “Like many, over the course of my life, I’ve spent a fair amount of time hoping for things. . . . And for the most part, it all turned out more or less as I’d hoped, but not without my fair share of disappointments and challenges. But did any of these things happen because I hoped they would? Or did they come about because of something else?” (HuffPost, THE_BLOG, “What’s Hope Got to Do With It?” Dr. Judith Rich).  And the answer to both questions is, in my opinion, “Yes.”

The first instance has to do with my hope for the opportunity to have a teaching career. As is obvious to all who know me, this hope “came true.”  But it required my planning, my effort, my success academically.  To quote Judith rich again, “It’s hope that ignites the flame, but we are the ones who must add fuel to the flames to keep the fire alive.”  Even so, it was an interesting mix of hope providing the motivation—becoming “the vehicle”—for my genuine efforts, along with a fair amount of “happenstance.”

For example, as I recounted in a blog post in early January, I had hoped for a teaching career since my undergraduate college days and I wanted to be prepared, should the opportunity present itself. I knew that a terminal degree would enhance my qualifications and I was faced with a decision—to accept admission to doctoral studies in Old Testament at Duke University or to stay and pursue doctoral studies at the seminary where I had completed my basic divinity degree.

It was a difficult choice to make, but my decision to stay at the seminary led to my interest and concentration in the field of philosophical studies, which resulted in my qualifying for a philosophy position at Mars Hill College, where I spent the majority of my career. Had I chosen the doctoral program in Old Testament at Duke, my career path would almost certainly have been entirely different from the one I have experienced and gratefully cherished. So, was my hope actualized by my efforts, my decisions, my preparation? In large part, yes, of course. But “happenstance” had also played a crucial role because, as I struggled to make that decision between Duke and the seminary, none of what followed could have been foreseen.

Furthermore, there was one more element of pure “happenstance” on the road to my teaching career which I have never addressed in my blog.  His name was Page Lee, and when I first met him and his wife, Anne, and their family, both of us were engaged in doctoral studies at Southern Seminary.  We happened to have study carrels on the same hallway and we just “hit it off” from the start.  We were so comfortable with each other, personally as well as in our theological and biblical perspectives, that it was the beginning of a friendship that grew and deepened over the next 3 years.  Along the way, I learned about Mars Hill College, from which Page was on leave to pursue his doctorate, but which hadn’t been on my radar, and about which I had known virtually nothing. 

Page completed his degree and returned to his faculty position at Mars Hill. A year later, he contacted me to tell me that Mars Hill was seeking, for the first time, a faculty member qualified to teach philosophy.  He urged me to apply.  Because of our friendship, I knew that if this was a place where he was comfortable, I could be, too.  I applied, he supported and recommended me, I interviewed and, as they say, “the rest is history.” 

But, oh my, that simple phrase encompasses everything—everything—that happened in my life from 1968 until today.  Had it not been for my friendship with Page, nothing in my professional life, my avocational life, my friendships and relationships, and most of my personal life would or could ever have happened. It was the “happenstance” that made possible the flowering of all of my efforts in pursuit of my “hope”.

A second hope, certainly not unusual for many people, was for a happy marriage, and for children—as I have recounted before and will be brief about now, that didn’t happen in my first marriage, although, gratefully, the children did.

I don’t regret that marriage because there were some good times and many things I treasure about it, including the three children we adopted. It was, however, a difficult time over a period of 22 years that finally, for me, came to a head and led me to separate from my wife and, consequently, from my children. It was quite literally the most agonizing thing I’ve ever done and, while I thought it was the right decision, I had no way of knowing for sure.

And yet, the result of that decision—along with effort on my part in the years that followed and a large dose of unforeseen “happenstance” again—led to the eventual fruition of my daunted hope. Important things “happened” after the separation from my wife:  the “blossoming” of my career in a healthy newfound personal space devoid of depression—largely the result of not living in what I knew to be a destructive relationship—and of learning to value solitude as distinguished from loneliness.

Each of those helped make me the person who was able to become friends with the woman who was the accompanist, musical director and my collaborator in the first of several musical theatre productions and in a dinner theatre group—founded by my friend, Jim Thomas—called “Bits and Pieces.” Over a period of three years of a growing friendship, she and I gradually came to understand that there was more than friendship to our relationship.  She grew to become the love of my life and a year later we were married.  Now Cathy, my cherished wife of 35 years, has made that hope for a happy and healthy marriage a reality.  While part of that did have to do with growth in my own personal development, much was also due to “happenstance” which I could not have foreseen or made to happen.

Finally, I had always hoped that during my “Golden Years” I would continue to be active like others I have known—walking 40-50 minutes a day, playing (doubles) tennis, traveling, being active.  All of that was true into my late-seventies, but the   hope that it would continue into my mid-to-late eighties, should I live that long, was compromised and largely dashed at the age of seventy-nine by a cervical spine issue that my neurosurgeon described, in non-clinical terms, as a “spongy” spinal cord. The result—preceded by seven hours of intense pain—was immediate numbness from my waist down, reduced strength in my legs, poor balance, and diminished mobility. Three years later, a heart attack and a severe gall bladder attack that resulted in major surgery, further reduced my mobility.

Hope in this instance was thwarted, but none of these three physical occurrences were a result of my lack of effort or anything I had consciously done to cause them—“happenstance” was the culprit!  Nevertheless, within my abilities, I continue to do some home exercises and a workout regime a couple of days a week at the local YMCA. And even in the face of the limitations these physical events have imposed, I confess to a continuation of hope for improvement at best, stability at least, and gratitude for the abilities I have to care for myself and to remain relatively active.

In conclusion, this, at last: Hope is a crucial part of being human—it can be that “vehicle” that empowers and enables the drive toward an important goal, and it can be that companion of faith in “things not seen” that makes the vagaries of life more bearable, more positive.  And although hope does carry the threat of disappointment in matters that lie beyond the vail of human control, perhaps when all is said and done, it is worth the risk.

And so I continue to live, in a variety of matters, in an ambiance of hope. May it be so for you.

Postscript:

Everything in our world has changed since I began writing, over three weeks ago, these reflections on “hope.”  Certainly at no point in the eight-plus decades of my life has there ever been a time when hope—in point/counterpoint—has been so central in the lives of so many. In one stark sense, what we hope for in the face of this local, national, and global viral threat to health, to well-being, to life itself, lies completely outside of our ability to bring about.  And yet, in another sense, without the efforts of countless individuals to respond wisely and cooperatively to this pandemic in whatever ways are within our capabilities and control—from offering our expertise where it is useful to simply “sheltering in place”—there is no way to combat and limit its insidious proliferation.

I yearn for hope to remain alive and well

·  in our individual hearts and minds as we maintain the “social distance” necessary to our personal and mutual well-being,

·  and in our awareness of “social identity” as we confront this unprecedented challenge with a sense of connection and community.

Grace, peace, and hope to all.