REFLECTION: Choosing Hope

As I began to explore CHOOSING HOPE, our congregational theme for the month of December, I thought: this is going to be easy! Who doesn't want to choose hope? After all, no matter how dark things may become on any given day, "The sun will come out, tomorrow" (at least according to Little Orphan Annie). That sense of optimism provides relief from having to do anything; just wait for a while, and all be just fine!

But once again, our friends at the Soul Matters Sharing Circle issued a challenge to my passive complacency. "[T]he promise that things will change…[is] only half of what hope is trying to say," says Soul Matters Founder Rev. Scott Tayler. "Hope doesn't just whisper 'It will be different,' it also shouts, 'It should be different' and 'It can be different.'"

Hope changes who we are, explains Rev. Scott. "When we believe a new day is possible, we don't just sit down and wait to see what happens. We get up and go out to meet the light. … When hope's holy impatience gets into our bones, we start acting as if we are worthy of that new day now. Which in turn changes others by convincing them that we have all waited long enough."

Hope is our December theme, but the word "Choosing" that comes just before it is doing some heavy-lifting, much like "Nurturing" did for "Gratitude" last month. Rather than being passive and waiting for the sun to come out tomorrow, Choosing Hope requires us to become active, to actually DO something!

When we choose hope, however, we don't know what the outcome will be. According to American writer/historian/activist Rebecca Solnit, "Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised." Poet Rosemary Wahtola Trommer tells us that hope takes courage: "Hope's secret," she explains, is that "it doesn't know the destination – it knows only that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other."

To choose hope, we must encourage ourselves to get past our natural cynicism. Dr. Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology in Stanford's School of Humanities & Sciences and director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, researches the relationship between hope and cynicism. His studies indicate that cynicism – the belief that people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest – has been on the rise for at least the past 50 years; in the early 1970s, one-half of Americans believed other people can be trusted, but by 2018, that number had dropped to one-third. That's a problem for all of us, because cynicism hurts us deeply, resulting in increased loneliness, depression, heart disease, and even earlier death. Cynics also have trouble building community. "Trusting communities seem to be more civically engaged and economically prosperous … and also more resilient in difficult times," says Dr. Zaki.

Choosing hope is an excellent way to fight cynicism. "Hope drives us to do things," Dr. Zaki explains. "It magnetizes us toward the future that we want, and because of that, makes that future more likely to occur." (You may want to check out this short video, in which Dr. Zaki explains a variety of ways to get beyond our cynicism and choose hope.)

Like nurturing our gratitude muscle, there are ways for us to build the courage it takes to choose hope. One of the strategies Dr. Zaki recommends for helping us move from hopelessness and pessimism to hope and optimism is something he calls "positive gossip." We can train ourselves to notice positive deeds and lift up the admirable qualities of others, thereby altering not only our own attention but that of others as well. When we open ourselves to goodness, we are able to live in a more hopeful world. 

One of the Spiritual Exercises in this month's Choosing Hope Ministry Packet offers us the opportunity to practice exactly that. It suggests that for one week, we engage in "positive gossip" by paying attention to and acknowledging the kindness, generosity, or goodness of others, then gossiping about our observations to someone else. It's important to notice not only how these actions make us feel, but also the reaction of others to our "anti-cynical scuttlebutt."

This simple habit can go a long way towards decreasing our "innate negativity bias" in which we tend to dwell on negative events. Such negativity, explains psychologist Theresa Lewis, is one way our brain tries to keep us safe. Such behavior, however, is left over from very long ago, when our very survival depended upon being afraid of everything in our environment. These days, however, that "fight-or-flight" response is no longer necessary.

Another interesting spiritual exercise this month describes a participatory art project that artist Candy Chang and writer James A. Reeves engaged in at New York City's Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art. In A Monument for the Anxious and the Hopeful, Chang and Reeves asked museum visitors to fill out cards with their hopes and anxieties, then they posted the cards to a wall, as if they were Tibetan prayer flags. Visitors who read these postings reported that the anxieties expressed by others reduced their sense of isolation, while the hopes restored their sense of the world's goodness.

You can view the list of the project participants' hopes and anxieties here. Soul Matters suggests we read over this list, opening ourselves to the thoughts and feelings that arise, then see if we too feel less isolation and more hope from reading what others wrote. Finally, we can read the list again to see which specific anxieties and hopes pull us emotionally, and ask ourselves:

• What makes these specific hopes and anxieties more pronounced for me right now?

• What might my inner wisdom be trying to tell me?

• How might the choices I made be offering me comfort or challenge?

  
  

In exploring this month's Choosing Hope Ministry Packet, I was particularly intrigued by this anonymous quotation:

Hope has two beautiful daughters.

Their names are Anger and Courage.

Anger at the way things are, and 

Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

We are living in a time when there is much to be angry about. To respond to what is happening, we must get beyond our anger with the courage to choose hope.

For me, choosing hope has taken the form of becoming involved with a group of local community members who are working together to express our anger about this country's leadership, and to create ways to help restore and protect our precious democracy. With anger as my fuel, I have managed to harness my courage, thereby choosing the hope that my actions could actually make a difference.

But what about you? What holy impatience will get into your bones this month? Will you have the courage to put one foot in front of the other, even knowing your hoped-for outcome is possible, but not promised? After all, you've waited long enough. Is it time for you to Choose Hope?

Seeking a deeper dive into CHOOSING HOPE?

Check out the one-page CHOOSING HOPE Overview, and the complete CHOOSING HOPE ministry packet.