Newsletter:
Vol. 6. Iss.2
15 April 2006
Hope or Optimism
The Rev. Peter J. Miano
One of my earliest childhood memories of current events is the Thresher Disaster. A submarine went down with its crew trapped inside. Rescuers established contact with the trapped sailors by tapping on the hull of the vessel. The first message received from the trapped men was, “Is there any hope?” When I was in college, a philosophy professor gave me an assignment to interview religious people asking them how the world would be different if there were no God. One of those I interviewed was my minister. He answered, “If there were no God, there would be no hope.” For him, the reality of hope proved the existence of God.
One of the most frequent questions I receive when I
return to the U.S. following a journey to Israel-Palestine is “Is there
any hope?” I always answer with an emphatic YES, but I am quick to add,
but there is little reason for optimism.
Many people confuse hope and optimism. Many associate
hope with naïve wishful thinking, as in the whimsical question, “Why
can’t we all just get along?” Hope is degraded, however, when
it is used to convey a simplistic Pollyanna sense of somehow everything will
turn out all right. This is optimism, not hope, and a rather chirpy variety
at that. Optimism is useful for things like planning our weekends, as when
we say, “I don’t think it will rain when we go to the beach.”
It is helpful in brightening up a room full of dour hearts. But optimism is
useless when approaching the heartbreaking environment of the Holy land. To
navigate the stormy waters of life anywhere, we need hope, not optimism—hope
enriched by a deep and mature spirituality that reminds us of God’s
presence, not just when everything is going great, but more importantly, when
nothing is.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he cautioned them not to
be ignorant, “so that you may grieve, but not as those who have no hope.”
(1 Thess. 4:13) Clearly, Paul’s idea of hope had nothing to do with
chirping optimism of the Pollyanna sort, because he was writing in a context
in which people were grieving. Things were not looking good. Yet, in spite
of the circumstances, Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to be firm in hope.
Hope is not the pie in the sky conviction that somehow everything will turn
out all right. Hope is the determination to persevere and overcome, in spite
of the overwhelming reality of grief, sorrow and challenge. When it comes
to current circumstances in the Holy Land, there is very little reason for
optimism, but there is a tremendous amount of hope. With or without the election
of Hamas in the January elections, with or without the election of a new Knesset
led by a center-right party, there are very few reasons to be cheerful. Still
there is hope. Palestinians and Israelis alike, who are burdened with fear,
faced with suffocating oppression, afflicted with enormous injustice based
on perverse, colonialistic, 19th century ideas of race, nation, peoplehood
and privilege, persevere in spite of the odds against them.
Why travel to the Holy Land? Aside for the obvious biblical studies benefits,
we American Christians have a lot to learn from the people of Israel, Palestine,
and Jordan about hope. For the faithful in these places, whether they are
Muslim, Jewish or Christian, faith is not an anesthetic. It is a fortifying
imperative that produces the determination to resist and overcome injustice,
fear and the impulse to seek vengeance.
Let’s not be ignorant, when one people is dominated by another , as
the Palestinians are, the dominated people do not usually acquiesce in their
own subjugation. With hope, they work to overcome. Without it, they resort
to the violence of the desperate.
