Pop 89: A Thrill of Hope

By Madonna Hamel

I’ve been in Kelowna for a week and a half and am just now finding my rhythm. It’s hard to develop a routine when every day is rife with significant change. From minute to minute, the men in my family face big, often agonizing challenges due to strokes. Their daily efforts to get back on their feet, to find the resources within themselves to adjust to life on life’s terms inspire their daughters and sisters. And the heightened reality of their predicaments requires of us a kind of relentless witnessing and encouragement and hopefulness.

And I find myself wondering about hope. What is hope? Is it something we should try not to have too much of? Buddhists warn us that hope can destabilize us, pitch us too far forward into a desired future, keep us from living in the present. Hope ties us to craving, which, ask any addict, causes suffering. Hope is the opposite of that other form of suffering - fear, fear of losing what we have or fear of not getting what we want. It sounds so mature to have neither hope nor fear. It also sounds impossible.

I understand that living in a constant state of grasping is not living. It’s a deluded way of being. I can also recall my grade school days at St. Mary’s and Mother Superior writing HOPE in capital letters on the blackboard. Hope, she told us, is one of the three main virtues, along with Faith and Love. Enduring suffering actually produces hope, she promised. And endurance helps fulfill intentions. I’m still working on that one. Then, with a nub of yellow chalk, she pointed to the board, saying: “This blackboard is actually green. Because green is the colour of hope. The colour of Spring. And hope springs eternal. Ask any farmer.”

Frankly, all virtues seemed the same to me, they fed off each other. Faith meant confidence in some higher power, and love was the fuel that fed faith. And hope was the answer to the question: “Why even bother?” Hope allowed for a glimpse of glee. Like it says in the Christmas Carol, O Holy Night: “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”

Who does not hope? Isn’t expecting to wake every morning a kind of hope? Or is hope more like a downgraded expectation, preference based on the understanding that, while I do not have control over how things turn out, I do know in which direction I’d like them to go? I know the ideal state of mind is one in which I accept whatever comes my way, but the truth is, when not even my Love or Faith can save the lives of others, I can still cling to Hope, like a life raft on stormy waters.

I also cling to visions: of my brother getting his vision back, his poems published, his life settled into some kind of normalcy. I cling to an intention of having a heartfelt conversation with my father before he moves on. I cling to my plan to finish my novel. Maybe cling is too strong a word. What is the verb we use for “hope”? Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I should rest my hopes in the palm of my hand, like a baby bird or a rose or a glass ornament. 

I believe we are meant to detach from our expectations and demands of life. But, the truth is, even my theories about letting and detaching are attachments. Like those cling-free cloths you throw in your drier and find velcro-ed to your backside while shopping for groceries, my theories around surrender cling to me. 

So every morning I go to mass at my father’s church in hopes of hearing something inspirational from Father Gerald. Hoping to experience a state of metanoia - a sudden transcendent moment of bonding with the Divine. Hoping to be relieved of the bondage of self. Hoping to get an electric shock from the ray of light bursting from the giant heart of Jesus in a painting hanging in the coffee room, the way it hit me ten years ago while talking to a woman who said, after I told her what happened, “I’d look into that if I were you. And I don’t just mean make an appointment with your doctor.”

I take notes during the sermon, as if at a press conference. Here’s what I scribbled yesterday: “And this I pray for you: That your Love may abound still more and more in knowledge and discernment and that you may approve of the things that are excellent, be sincere without defence, and be filled with the fruits of the Spirit.” I’m not even sure what it means, but I hope to grow into a kind of embodied knowing of it. Meanwhile: I’ll take all and every fruit the Spirit wishes to offer me. I’ll loosen my grip to allow new fruits to land in the palm of my hand.

Fr. Gerald reminds us the whole point of this season is to get empty, get ready for a new life, and patiently trust that all will be revealed, in time. Why does such a message relax, warm and assure me? Perhaps because, these last months, I am hoping for a kind of nourishment that exceeds anything the secular, material world can give me. It turns out no amount of accolades, admiration, or even cash can fill me the way emptying myself of all those cravings can. I am not asking for answers as much as reminders that I am not alone in my religious doubts and Spirit nudging, my preferences and expectations, and my all too human hopes and fears.

It’s late. My sister and I have returned to her home from the hospital. I sit and watch her decorate the tree while we recap our day. We know people the world over feel like we do tonight: thankful and fearful, weary and hopeful.