I’m angry at hope.
Not at a person named Hope, but at hope itself. “To cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or to be true” (Merriam-Webster). That kind of hope.
Because, dammit, hope so often disappoints, does it not? Especially if you are an idealist like myself. Especially when you see so many possibilities that seem so rarely to come to fruition. Especially when your heart is involved and it gets pushed by the wayside. Like a shiny new toy that one was excited about, saved up for, played with excitedly for a few weeks, and then lost interest in and moved on from-like one of Andy’s toys in the infamous Pixar movie without so much as a name written on the sole of your foot. But a name written on my soul that left scars. More of them.
A few weeks ago, I texted some girlfriends to see if they wanted to take a drive into the mountains. It is peak season for aspens to turn their taunting brilliant yellows and the Colorado Rockies love to flaunt their colors. I made it clear the purpose, however. To drive. To listen to music, maybe a podcast or two, to just “be” because being anything else was too much. I knew these friends would understand, were in their own versions of the same place. So, Katie and I looped around back off I-70 to scoop up Andrea when she got off work and wove our way through 5 o’clock traffic with the nose of the car pointed West. When I have my way it’s almost always pointed in that direction. To the mountains. To beauty. Away from the city.
The mountains must have known. They were as moody as we were, and even the colors of fall were dimmed by low lying clouds, drizzle, and fog so thick I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of me as I wound up a mountain pass towards Winter Park. I white-knuckled the S-curves up the pass and leaned into my steering wheel as I drove. Nevertheless, we found a particularly yellow patch amidst evergreens along the way and hopped out for the obligatory selfie. We look cold and uncomfortable, and the photo is colored with as much grey as yellow, but we’re feigning big smiles, anyway.
In Winter Park, which was shockingly clear as we drove down the western slope of the pass, snow speckled ski slopes that will soon be full of winter enthusiasts. Not yet, however, and we walked around bundled in fleece blankets just long enough to assure ourselves that we had done our duty “exploring” the abandoned ski town and climbed back in the car in search of comfort food.
Nosing back east in the dark, the fog thicker than before in the pitch black, we turned on a podcast and let it speak for us where words continued to fail. Not even knowing the synopsis, I had downloaded a podcast from Radiolab entitled, “Anna in Somalia” and played it while I prayed not to misjudge a sharp curve or rear end another vehicle in the worst visibility I’ve driven for a long time.
It was not at all what I expected.
It was a story about a man named Mohammed who lived in Somalia in 1981 while it was under the dictatorship of Siad Barre. Mohammed, newly wed, received a letter from a friend of his who was the director of a hospital that was in dire need of supplies, especially bedding, but had been cut off from supplies by Barre and his regime. He asked Mohammed to discreetly raise funding for the hospital. Mohammed, however, wrote an open letter asking for financial support and described the terrible conditions of the hospital and of the country, in general. Several weeks later, in the middle of the night, Mohammed was arrested, accused of treason, and sentenced to a life of solitary confinement in a political prison. His jail cell was approximately 6’x6’, concrete walls, a hole in the floor for a toilet, a very high window that allowed little light. Cockroaches, rats, and mosquitos infiltrated the cell. The worst part, however, was the jarring silence that filled his mind. Prisoners were forbidden to speak to one another.
Complete silence. Until one day, eight months later, he hears a knock on the wall adjacent to his cell and the words, “Learn ABC”. The prisoner in the cell next to his was teaching him to learn an alphabet of sorts via different knocks on the wall. Their own form of Morse Code. Learning the code was described by a prisoner as, “the most exciting day of your life.” Prisoners could communicate to each other through these taps without being detected by the guards. Telling a joke might take an entire hour to relay to the prisoner eight cells down, but the laughter was worth the wait. Despite the reprieve communication brought, Mohammed would wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night and awaken his neighbor to tell him he needed to “talk.” He feared his new wife would divorce him because of political pressure, and his fears turned into resentment. He feared he would lose his sanity. He feared he would die in his small, concrete cell. His hope was waning. Months turned into years.
Two years after he was arrested, the prisoner in the cell adjacent to Mohammed, Dr. Adan Abacor (sp?), the very same doctor who had asked Mohammed to help him raise funds for the hospital, was released from his cell for a brief period. He was ushered into a room where he was allowed to pick one article of personal clothing to wear to switch out for the putrid jail clothes he had worn for a full two years. Rather than selecting a pair of pants or a shirt, Dr. Adan paused and asked if he might select a book instead. To his surprise, the guard acquiesced, and Dr. Adan selected Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the largest book he could find. It is 800 pages long.
When Dr. Adan returned to his cell, he tapped to Mohammed that he had a book, and that he would “read” it to him. All 800 pages. 350,000 words. Over two million letters-each to be tapped out individually through a concrete wall. In preparation, Dr. Adan wrapped a strip of his bed sheet around his wrist to brace it for the knocks against the wall.
Every morning, for over two months, Dr. Adan tapped out lines from a novel about a 19th century Russian noblewoman who left her husband to declare love for a soldier who stole her heart. Mohammed related his situation to that of Anna as he realized her ostracization from “society” and her heartache for her lover was similar to his imprisonment. Through the eyes of different characters and their perspectives, his heart for the difficulty his young wife must be facing in his absence also softened. He realized his wife must be suffering terribly and his self-pity turned into a newfound love and regard for his wife.
Eight years later, with the change of political winds, Mohammed was released. Still another 10 months after that, Mohammed was finally reunited with his wife, Isman (sp?), who had been living in a refugee camp in Germany. They had to re-learn to love one another, and the road was not easy, but Tolstoy and taps on the wall made that more possible.
Because the taps brought distraction. They brought insight. They brought perspective. Most of all-they brought hope. Radiolab -Rough Translation: Anna in Somalia
It took me a few days to arrive at this realization, but when it did, I was struck to have to acknowledge following: hope is one of our greatest survival instincts.
Because if we haven’t hope, for this life or the next, what have we? How do we make it through the loss and heartache? Through the broken bodies and broken hearts and broken dreams? Through the mornings when the sunshine seems cruel and the nights we are too weary to sleep?
As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” I Corinthians 15:30-32
What Paul is asking the Corinthians, essentially, is- “If this Jesus that I am risking my life for, daily, is not the real deal, then what is the point? Why am I choosing to suffer for a purpose greater than this life when I could eat, drink and be merry now?” Well, because Paul staked his life on the relationship he had with the savior because he knew it to be a mere foretaste of the glory that awaits (Please, Lord).
But sometimes I resent that Paul actually had a foretaste of said glory, that he heard the voice of the Lord, that the Lord actually told Ananias (who prayed that Saul would regain his sight after being struck blind) that, “Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel.”
…He next said, “And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16) But I don’t like that part as much. Does anyone?
So when we hope for good things, things we believe God has placed on our hearts, and that hope disappoints, what then?
I’m not trying to get “spiritual,” but as I write snipets of scripture come to mind and I have to dig a little to find the rest of the passage. In Romans, we are told, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”
I don’t know about you — actually, I have a good inkling you feel the same– but sometimes I feel utterly exhausted of developing “endurance.” And I think my character is doing ok. And how is it that character strengthens our hope of salvation? And how do we know that this hope will not disappoint? I would be grateful for some audible words from the Holy Spirit as reassurance now and then…
What about hope in things of this life? The hope that I will, sooner than later, be seen and known and loved by a man who wants to commit his future to serving the Lord and serving others with me. With me. When will that hope not disappoint?
I suppose the reality is that hope that does not disappoint is based on Jesus.
And the hope that keeps disappointing is based on man. On men. On hoping for them (and myself) to be more like Jesus. And I disappoint others and am disappointed all the time. It is a reality that stings.
But maybe? Maybe character truly is what is developed when we persevere through the disappointment. Maybe patience is built into that character. Maybe self-control gets a bit of a leg up when we learn that our own attempts to affect change preemptively lead to more pain. Maybe our love runs deeper when we have experienced the break of shallow love. Maybe real joy rings truer when our bones know what it is to feel dry to the marrow. Maybe our kindness is more sincere, our gentleness more authentic, when we gain the perspective that everyone is secretly fighting their own battles, because we, ourselves, are constantly fighting hidden battles. Maybe, when we have experienced fake “good” we see right through it and learn to offer real good—the good that is harder to offer yet more easily affects change. And just maybe, when we have been wounded by unfaithfulness, be it from a friend or a lover, we learn what a gift it is to find one who will remain faithful. Maybe even WE grow in our capacity to remain faithful. To one another. To our faith. To the Jesus we hope in who does. not. disappoint.
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