"When Hope Is Hard to Find"

Bruce Beisner
August 23, 2009

“Come sing a song with me… I’ll bring you hope, when hope is hard to find. I’ll bring a song of love, and a rose in the wintertime” We sang those words together in our opening hymn this morning. How do we find hope? How do we bring hope to one another when we find ourselves in despair, when our prayers seem unanswered and we come to another one of those “dark nights of the soul”? Where does our hope come from? In these days of economic hardship here at home, wars and poverty abroad, and the ever present realities of sickness, violence and injustice, the song speaks of bringing “a rose in the wintertime.” A lovely and poetic image. I wonder what those wintertime roses really look like and feel like in our concrete day to day lives.

This summer I attended a class at my seminary in Chicago called “Preaching Like You Mean It.” The course was led by William Schultz, the former president of our Unitarian Universalist Association and past director of the US chapter of Amnesty International. Bill is an amazing and gifted preacher, with a knack for drama, a sharp wit, and a highly attentive and often skeptical mind.

One of the assignments he gave us for the class was to write a paper on our personal source of hope. The syllabus read “Imagine your congregation on a Sunday morning includes a person whose spouse has just walked out on them, another person who just lost the best job they say that ever had, a third who recently experienced a blatantly racist or homophobic remark from someone they considered a good friend, a fourth who is deeply emotionally distressed about the genocide in Darfur, and a couple whose 12-year-old child has just been diagnosed with a potentially fatal illness.” 1 The assignment was to write about what source of hope, I, as these people’s minister, would call upon in my sermon that day.

My first reaction was to think “Could he have possibly picked a more challenging question?” I know this is graduate school, but maybe we could start with something little easier. And I also knew that in writing a paper for Bill Schultz I was not going to get away with simple feel good platitudes. Today I offer you some thoughts that came out of writing that paper and the discussion we had in class about finding hope in our personal and spiritual lives.

I have been told my many people that I am an optimist. And indeed I do seem to possess a pretty positive view of things and am predisposed to focus on the good in most situations. This ability to see “challenges as opportunities” has served me well in life. It comes in particularly handy when I get a flat tire on Cross County highway and have to muster the courage to get out and change it all by myself, or when I’m facilitating a Worship Committee meeting where we have to confront the fact that we’ve spent all our honorarium money for the year and still have five more Sundays to find speakers to fill.  Or when the lawnmower breaks down or another telemarketer calls just as we sit down to dinner. While this attitude may not always fix the problem or resolve a potential conflict, it seems to diffuse the tension and keep things from escalating. I find in modeling an optimistic outlook, I am often able to inspire others to do the same.  

But there are also times when my perspective that “everything is going to be all right if we look on the bright side” just isn’t enough, when it rings a little hollow. In the face of deep personal trauma, loss, pain or anger, simple optimism will not carry me through and it utterly fails as a tool for authentic and effective care for others who are suffering.  I find that I need hope.

This past spring our Cincinnati UU community suffered a very difficult loss. A 13-year old girl named Esme Kenny, who was a beloved part of the St. John’s Church community, was taken from us.  Esme was an outstanding pupil, an accomplished musician, a cherished daughter and sister, and a regular smiling face in the Religious Education classes at St. John’s. Some here at Northern Hills knew her from her participation in the Our Whole Lives program with our local UU teens. She went out for a walk one afternoon near her home and never came back.  Days later we found out that she had been abducted and killed.  

Esme’s sudden death, which seemed so vicious and meaningless, was devastating for her family and for the church community which loved her so much. The foundations of our liberal optimism, our affirmation in the goodness of humanity and the power of love to make things right, were shaken to their core. Our aspirations for forgiveness and acceptance seemed difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The abrupt ending of this young life with so much potential challenged our belief in the future. There was no “bright side” to look on. Optimism could not soothe the pain. We needed hope. 

My understanding of this need for hope rather than optimism was enhanced by reading a sermon from 1996 by the Rev. David Bumbaugh.  In coming to terms with the enormity in human history of suffering, unfairness, and prejudice, Bumbaugh said “Reflecting on this experience, I discover that while I am not optimistic, I am stubbornly hopeful. Optimism assumes that somehow things will work out for the best, that perhaps they are not as bad as they seem, or that perhaps our efforts will prove adequate to change them if they are as bad as they seem. When I look at our world and the challenges we face, I cannot make that assumption; I cannot tell you that I am confident about our ability to think or work our way out of the situation in which we find ourselves.” 2

Why ought we choose to believe there is hope for tomorrow when faced with the loss of a child or the physical and mental suffering of an illness?  This is an extremely difficult question and one I know will have to be answered by each individual in their own way.  For me, my hope comes from trying to remember three basic truths. The first is my experience. The second is the limits of my experience. And the third is that I am not alone.

When I come up against what seems an insurmountable task, such as completing all the readings and assignments for an upcoming seminary class, I force myself to remember my own experiences. I recall the long reading list for last semester’s class and remember that somehow I got through it. If I could do it then, I can do it now.  I have hope. And I think back to other times, more severe crisis in my life, when I just knew I would not or could not endure the pain. Then I realize that somehow I did.

I had a good friend in college who would often say, in the midst of some awful event or difficult time, “You know twenty years from now, we’re going to laugh about this. It will make a great story.” While there are situations I know I will probably never laugh about and wounds that may never completely heal, I do recognize the wisdom in this outlook. My experiences have taught me, that for better or worse, life goes on. And, in the words of that song from the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies:
“Good times and bum times, I've seen them all and, my dear, I'm still here.
I've run the gamut. A to Z.Three cheers and dammit, C'est la vie.
I got through all of last year, and I'm here.” 3

I also believe that when the walls of my life come tumbling down, there is power in humility.  No matter how many books I’ve read, no matter how many degrees hang on my office wall, no matter what wisdom I think I might have, I don’t know it all. There is always more revelation to come, more lessons life has yet to teach me. In the words of the great comedian Gracie Allen, “Never put a period where God has put a comma.” There is still more mystery to behold.  

David Bumbaugh put it this way, “My hope rests upon a conviction that there are more forces at work in this world than I can understand or recognize or measure and that these forces interact with a complexity no one can chart. This is the truth that will not let me go, the faith in which my hope is rooted: We are part of a process which is larger than we can measure, more complex than we can fathom—a process which we do not control, a process in which we are carried along, but a process we can affect in significant ways, often in ways important beyond our ability to understand.” 4

Sometimes we desperately want to put “a period” on our experience because that “comma” just seems to leave us hanging. This uncertainty can be a source of fear and anxiety. But it can also be a great source of hope. While I may think that I have a handle on the “right now” and at least some understanding of how I got here, I do not, cannot and will never know exactly what tomorrow will bring.  There is power and healing in this simple recognition. It gives me the ability to take a deep breath when all the air seems to have left the room. It allows me to pause for a moment when everything is racing so quickly towards oblivion. The limits of my knowledge and experience remind me that my pain and anguish, no matter how intense and immediate, are not the center of the universe. They are not all there is.  They are not all
I am.

Some of you may remember something Rev. Annie Foerster used to say during worship when she was the minister here at Northern Hills. At the end of each Sunday’s lighting candles and sharing of Joys and Sorrows, Annie would remind us that the candles for our sorrows and the candles for our joys both burn with equal brightness. And, as we hold these stories in our hearts, we realize that both candles will also burn out in equal time. She often shared similar thoughts when she was my minister at St. John’s. I always found this to be a powerful symbol of hope. Life is fleeting and change will move us on to new stories and new joys and new sorrows. The sun will rise again.

Like every Unitarian Universalist I know, I am often asked “What do you believe?” I often respond by explaining that as liberal religious people we honor the individual path for truth and meaning. Thus, we believe we should be loving, compassionate and treat others with empathy. We see the purpose of the church as not a place which instills a single dogmatic view of God but instead is a community of context and conscience where we can be encouraged and inspired to live out our spiritual values and beliefs. This community is a key source of hope in my life.

When I was 15 years old I fell madly and secretly in love with a male classmate. My unrequited passion was made all the more difficult because I just knew that I was the only person in the world who had these feelings. I knew I could not talk about my feelings with anyone. I knew it was my own shameful secret. I felt I was totally alone in my difference. I was depressed, lonely and hopeless. Several years later I discovered the gay community in my hometown and realized that I was far from alone in thinking “I’m the only one.”  While coming out was not easy, it was made possible by finding friends who understood me and supported me.

In times of trial, reaching out is key to keeping hope alive. Whether its sharing a story during the Sunday worship service, calling an anonymous crisis hotline, or just reading articles in magazines or on the web, getting out of my emotional isolation helps. I get hope when I realize that I am not the only one who has felt this way. I find hope in the stories of those who have survived and risen out of the flames of their despair. Hope comes in knowing I am not really as alone as I may feel at this moment.

On a sunny afternoon this past March, we came together to remember the life of Esme Kenny. Hundreds, an overflow crowd, gathered at St. John’s for her memorial service. During that service, I vividly remember all of us standing together and holding hands and singing the hymn “We Laugh, We Cry.” In this time of such deep pain and loss, our voices rose with the chorus “And we believe in life, and the strength of love, and we have found a joy being together…”  Hope springs from believing in life and remembering we are surrounded by fellow travelers on the journey. And even when we think we know the outcome, life and love can step in and surprise us.
 
Esme’s service ended with this benediction by Nancy Wood, “Hold on to what is good, even if it a handful of dirt. Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here. And hold on to my hand, even when I have gone away from you.” 5   

For me, hope is, at its essence, holding on to what I know from my own experience, grabbing the hand of the person beside me to steady me, and having faith that tomorrow will be another day.
           

1. Schultz, William F., Syllabus for “Preaching Like You Mean It” Summer 2009 Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago, IL
2. Rev. David Bumbaugh, “When Courage Fails and Faith Burns Low” January 21, 1996, The Unitarian Church of Summit, New Jersey http://www.ucsummit.org/Sermons/DEB/960121.html
3. Sondheim, Stephen, “I’m Still Here” from the musical Follies
4. Rev. David Bumbaugh,  “When Courage Fails and Faith Burns Low” January 21, 1996, The Unitarian Church of Summit, New Jersey http://www.ucsummit.org/Sermons/DEB/960121.html
5. Wood, Nancy,“Singing The Living Tradition” reading #688