How to Hope

I want to write about how to hope.

But first, I want to be honest that sometimes it is hard for me to hope.

One of the reasons it’s hard is that I ALWAYS have to know why.

My mom says that as a toddler, I used to follow her around the house asking “Why?” constantly.

I pretty much still do this. My general relationship towards the world is “Why?”

By that, I mean that I want to know why something is true if it is.

And the reasons people give, or I give to myself, have to make sense to me.

Now, I think hope is important. And I believe it is right to hope. This is a conviction I have.

Drawing and painting by Shelly P. Johnson.

But of course, I need to know WHY hope is important and WHY we can have hope.

And sometimes this is a little tricky when I look at the world around me and see a lot of greed, cruelty, and  violence.

I see such things, and it seems like evidence for hopelessness, rather than hope.

But there is something else I have seen in the world.

And I wanted to ask you to imagine and contemplate it with me for a minute.

Right now, it is Spring. And there is so much amazing beauty springing to life.

For example, we have tulips blooming in our yard right now, and they feel like a miracle.

I think they feel especially miraculous because winter this year was exceptionally cold and snowy and grey.

And it felt frequently like Spring would never come.

But here Spring is, dazzling everyone and producing amazing things like tulips.

Nature wants to live. It wants to grow. It wants to be beautiful.

It’s like nature loves to live, and it loves all living things.

There is, in fact, a term for this.

In the 70s, biologist Edward Owen Wilson argued that a powerful drive called biophilia lies at the heart of  all nature.

Biophilia is a love for life. It’s a drive to live and nurture life that runs throughout all of  nature.

Now, of course, nature can be destructive, we know.

Carnivores devour their prey. Hurricanes and wildfires can destroy entire ecosystems.

For much of history, the human species struggle to preserve itself amidst the many destructive forces in nature.

And yet despite all of this, nature wants to live.

Things want to bloom. Landscapes want to regenerate themselves. Life is determined to live and live beautifully.

And that’s why, even in the midst of very cold, grey winters, we have hope that Spring will come.

And our hope is most certainly reasonable.

It is right to hope.

But, someone might say, That’s great for nature. But it’s not the same for human beings. We don’t have natural winter-spring cycles built into the human condition.

And that’s certainly true.

So, sometimes we get stuck in the bleak midwinter of bad human behavior (our own or others).

And we feel like we will be stuck there forever.

That’s why when it feels like things are especially bad in the world, it can feel hard to hope.

This feeling of long winter, and longing for spring, is one of the most common (and often painful) experiences of humanity.

In fact, it often makes its way into our children’s stories.

For example, I have a vivid memory of sitting on my aunt’s lap when I was in elementary school and her reading The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe to me.

This story is, among other thing, longing for Spring in the middle of winter.

If you are not familiar with this story, it’s a fantasy tale about four, young brothers and sisters–the Pevensie Children–who stumble upon a magical wardrobe that leads them to the magical land of Narnia.

I still have my Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe book form the 70s. This is what the cover looks like. (Mine is at my work office, so this is a picture I found online.)

Sadly, a White Witch has taken control of the land of Narnia. And she has declared it will always be winter there.

But as the children meet other people and creatures in Narnia, they hear a rumor: Aslan is on the move.

Aslan is a beautiful, powerful lion who, we come to learn, is more powerful than the White Witch.

He wields a deep magic that he claims is older than the beginning of the world.

It disrupts the death and violence the White Witch tries establish as the rule of law in Narnia.

In fact, just as we hear the rumors of Alan in the book, we also start to see signs of spring popping up all over.

It is clear: the Queen’s reign is about to end.

At one point, Aslan, in an act of love, sacrifices himself a to disrupt the power of the White Witch.

She thinks she has won.

But Aslan comes back to life, and in a beautiful moment in the story, we see Spring burst into life, ending the interminable winter of the White Witch.

And we discover that the Pevensie children are destined to become the new rulers of Narnia, bringing an end to the rule of the White Witch, creating a peaceful and beautiful kingdom.

The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe powerfully impacted me when I was little.

It taught me to believe that no matter how bleak, wintery, and evil things look around us, there is always a deeper magic at work in the world.

And we are part of this magic.

In fact, we are all meant to work with Aslan, disrupting the rule of the White Witch.

We are all meant to be rulers of Narnia.

I started writing this post a few weeks ago on Easter Sunday. And if we have ever been to church on Easter Sunday, we’ve probably heard a similar story.

In the Christian New Testament, we read about Christ who came to the world to disrupt and overturn powers of darkness, violence, and cruelty that ruled in the world.

The Roman Empire, along with the religious legalism of Christ’s day, symbolized such destructiveness, which had thus far been the story of human history.

Christ came to destroy such violence. And He showed us a different kingdom.

I was reflecting on this different kingdom a few weeks ago in church

My pastor was talking about Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.

He pointed out that Christ’s disciples, who believed Christ was the new ruler of the world, likely expected him to enter on a powerful horse, wielding a sword, branding his power and omnipotence.

That’s the leadership style of the old kingdom.

However, when Christ entered, instead, on a humble donkey, he signaled that his kingdom, and his reason (or logic), was quite a different one.

I am going to call this springtime kingdom and springtime logic.

And Christ’s previous actions showed this kind of springtime kingdom and logic, too.

Christ’s springtime kingdom and logic was one of love, reason and imagination where  . . .

There is abundant loaves and fishes to feed everyone.

Lepers, lame people, and women with incurable bleeding find healing.

Prostitutes, tax collectors, and other social outcasts feel embraced by love and find a new start to their  life.

Creativity overcomes legalism.

Love overcomes cruelty and violence.

Hope overcomes cynicism.

As the New Testament relates, Christ’s later death on the cross broke the interminable winter of sin and the unbearable grip of the kingdom of death.

His resurrection brings the possibility of Spring into the world.

Christ’s miraculous, deep magic creates the space for a new world to emerge, and we are meant to participate in this process.

In fact, in the New Testament, Christ says, “For, indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).

This new kingdom is definitely a biophilic kingdom in which love, reason, and imagination flourish.

That’s some deep magic.

Probably not a lot of people use the word magic in relation to Christ’s Easter story. However, the older I get, the more I believe magic is the appropriate term.

And, in fact, the older I get, the more I believe in magic.

When I think of magic, I think of the ability to make something that wasn’t there before magically appear.

And that is exactly what happens when we use love, reason, and imagination together.

We make something that wasn’t there before magically appear.

For instance, we catalyze brand new hopeful and loving ways of looking at the world, breaking through the winter of hopelessness and apathy.

Love, reason, and imagination are so powerful together because they  connect with a life drive that we all have.

In fact, the term biophilia doesn’t just apply to nature. It applies to humans, too.

Interestingly, the very same time that E.O. Wilson coined the term biophilia in regards to nature, the philosopher and psychologist Eric Fromm coined this term independently in regards to human nature.

Fromm argued that biophilia, the love for life and all living things, is at the base of human nature.

And he grounded biophilia in our power of love, reason, and imagination.

Biophilia disrupts necrophilic forces that cling to violence and death.

And in this disruption, biophilic forces create a space for life to grow where it previously seemed like this was impossible.

Now, you may believe, like I do, that our powers of love, reason, and imagination are the image of God in us.

Or you might believe these powers are  just a part of our Higher Self.

But either way, it’s pretty clear that love, reason, and imagination are a deep, old magic.

People have been practicing these beautiful powers for a very long time.

Whenever they do, they break through the bleak winter of cruelty and violence and usher in spring.

Rosa Parks is one of my favorite examples of this.

Many people know that Rosa Parks played a pivotal role in catalyzing the Civil Rights movement.

One day, she was riding a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

At that time, as segregation was practiced widely throughout society, many bus drivers asked black passengers to give up their seats at the front of the bus for white passengers.

On the particular day in question, Parks was sitting at the front of a crowded bus when a white passenger boarded.

The bus driver asked her to give her seat to the white passenger and move to the seats in the back. Parks peacefully but firmly refused.

Although there were technically laws in Alabama that prohibited forcing black people to move on the bus for white people, it was a common practice.

Racism was so ingrained in the city that soon after Park’s courageous resistance, police arrived on the scene to reprimand her for her courageous stand against the bus driver’s racism.

Parks endured these persecutions with dignity and courage.

Her boycott inspired a city-wide bus boycott, which was pivotal in the Civil Rights Movement.

In fact, many hail Rosa Parks as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”.

I often marvel at how much strength it took for this woman to resist injustice, knowing she would most certainly face some sort of retaliation.

There are probably many reasons why Rosa Parks did what she did.

However, one reason was that she loved herself and her black brothers and sisters too much to let things continue the way they were.

Another reason was that she used exercised her reason and knew there was no legitimate reasons for black people to sit at the back of the bus and white people at the front.

And then she used her imagination to imagine a different world and act it out.

Parks’ love, reason, and imagination changed the world.

That’s that deep magic at work. It broke through the long winter of racism and catalyzed the Civil Rights movement: a springtime kingdom entered the world.

We can all do this kind of thing, too.

Whenever we practice these beautiful gifts, especially when we do it together, it breaks through the interminable winters we experience in our life and ushers in spring.

As such, we become makers and dreamers of history, which is our destiny.

We are meant to create a peaceable and beautiful world together.

It’s our biophilic drive, the deep magic (if you will), within each of us.

And that is why it is reasonable to hope.

Right now, you might look out into the world and see a long winter of greed, violence, ignorance, and cruelty.

Or you may be suffering a long winter of sadness in your own life.

Please know there are millions of people in the world exercising love, reason, and imagination and working this deep magic.

And please know that the deep magic of love, reason, and imagination are at work inside of you, too.

You and I can be part of the process of life and spring. That’s our destiny.

Aslan is on the move. Winter’s reign is almost done. And spring is right around the corner.

You might also like this post:

How to Build a Hope Sandwich You Can Eat Every Day

****

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing on social media.

I also invite you to follow my by hitting the Follow button at the right or bottom of the page.