Hope Is Embracing My Ability To Create The Future

I learned many years ago that forgiveness is giving up all desire to change the past. I have tried, with mixed results, to practice doing that. When I really take on practicing forgiveness, I have found tremendous freedom from constantly needing to turn back to the past – to blame someone, to justify myself, to relish righteous anger or indignation, to allow people who have caused me pain to live rent free in my head. I fail often. When I do choose the freedom that can come from forgiveness, even if it doesn’t magically erase the pain or memory, I don’t feel controlled by past events anymore. I don’t make light of what this takes, or how complex this is for each person and situation. One of the most transformative experiences I had with forgiveness was terrifying to willingly take on. But I was the one who chose to do so. No one coerced me. In that choice, I saw an aspect of creative power I had not realized before. 

The power of choice, of agency, is crucial to creating my life. In this instance, I created freedom from the past. I began to create appreciation that all things that had happened before now – sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure, construction and destruction, wounding and healing, accident or intentional, all things brought me to now. I can choose to acknowledge and honor all people and actions for what is and what is not. And create freedom to move forward in that choice. 

Or not. I often fail to let go. There are plenty of ways the past still claims a hold on me. And it is mine to get the impact and cost of that. I embrace the ways I have chosen freedom. I continue to practice.

I have been to several events this week that have involved discussions about nuanced faith and complex journeys. The idea of hope was brought up in both. I considered how hope is an integral part of my life now. My concern for the state of the world is taking precedence in where I focus my efforts.

At night, it is hard for me to calm my worries about the ongoing takeover of my country by authoritarians and oligarchs, and the lives at risk or lost because of their efforts. It is rare for me to feel rested in the morning, and I often want to shut down and give up on making a difference in the world. It is obstinate, illogical hope that pushes through to me. Hope refuses to let me remain in a fetal position, under the covers, thinking I can never stem the unfeeling greed, the ignorant fears, the deadly racism and sexism and homophobia that drives people to turn on others viciously, or worse, without feeling, as they intentionally repeat the atrocities like those of the Holocaust, and like violence waged against the civil rights movement. Those perpetuating this violence are not just ignoring our history, they are wanting to repeat it, and be a part of the regime that subdues and controls those they fear, those they “other”. It is hope that gets me to call all my representatives every morning, like a daily activist meditative practice, expressing my concerns, my determination to make them aware that I exist, that I will not give up. It is hope that gets me to rallies, no matter the weather. Or to show up at hearings, and meetings. It is hope that gets me to stand outside the Senate or House chamber at the Capitol, waiting for members of committees, stepping up and talking with them about why a bill is harmful or helpful, speaking clearly and intentionally (even though I want to yell at some of them), sharing lived experiences, trying to break through their wall of certainty. It is hope that gets me to attend trainings about how to effectively put my privileged body in front of those at risk when they are being threatened or attacked. It is hope that refuses to let me tolerate any justification for turning back to the past. Especially in ways that deny most of the historical details in order to isolate and praise systems that were built on racism and sexism, but are now presented as empty, performative patriotism. 

I am seeing that hope is embracing my ability to create the future. My experience with God informs me that Their creative power came from hopeful love. They created worlds where we could each find our own creative power to journey forward.

What about the future? What about moving forward? What about the next step on a path that is not always clear? How can I live the hope of creating the future when there is so much devastation now?

So much of my conversation with others about creating my own path has been about faith journeys. And that this is a practice I choose, moment by moment to take on for the rest of my life. I don’t always know where it will lead, or how it will look. Often, it is like that breathless, terrifying moment from the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana’s father has been shot by the Nazi’s, and Indiana has to find a way through the obstacles to get the Holy Grail, and save his father’s life. (This is especially moving to me, because what wouldn’t I do to have more time with my father?) Indiana follows the signs, and makes it through several seemingly impossible traps, until he comes to the edge of a deep chasm, with no way to cross. The only clue is that it is only by a leap of faith that he can see his way forward. He is gasping in terror, but he has to believe there is a way forward, since returning will only mean death. So, he steps out into nothingness. But only when he is in the next moment, the next space, can he see the way forward. He created a new future in taking that step.

I can take as long as I need on the edge of the chasm of the unknown. I can experience the terror of moving into the future for however long I feel it. I can turn again to the past if I choose to deal with that pain. I can create my future, choosing to step forward on a path that I might not see until I am in the next moment, the next place I step.

The practice of taking this on in my faith journey has always carried out into how I create my life in the world. I often say that Jesus wants me for an activist. My Mormon practice teaches me to live in this world with hope. It has taught me that hope is not about denying hurt, pain, woundedness, devastation. It is about seeing that depth of experience creates depth of possibility. Opposition in all things, proving contraries, greater sorrow has the possibility of greater joy. Those who deny feeling, compassion, mercy, suffering, want, charity, love – those move them past feeling. The only way to survive a life that justifies eliminating people because of ideology, or ignorance, or fear, or some kind of worthiness rhetoric, is to suppress any depth of feeling. It is a shallow, miserable life which can find no fulfillment. Living hopeful love is not denial, but rather deep acknowledgement of all things, of all existence, being present to it, and creating from it into the future.

I read the daily “Letters From An American” by Heather Cox Richardson. She is a historian who offers a daily perspective on current events in context of history. One of her books is about the horrible massacre at Wounded Knee. She has described how difficult it was doing the research, reading the accounts of the terrible violence, and seeing the pivotal moments where one person could have done something different that would have prevented a great deal of suffering. She talks of how hard it is, as a historian, to study all these moments that could have been different, but have to acknowledge that you can’t go back and change the past. Then she acknowledges that we always, always have the power to change the future. All of her studies, her understanding of history, her own efforts to educate each day, everything to help us see that we all have the power to change the future. To create the future. All of that is hope.

There is an interview that Stephen Colbert did when he had Nick Cave as a guest on the Tonight Show. I watch it regularly as part of my contemplative study. In part of it, Nick talks about the devastation from the death of his son, and the long process of moving forward from that, living creation and hope again. One of his creations is the Red Hand Files, where people can write to him and ask him anything. It is a type of ministry. He read from a letter from a man who has lost faith in humanity, and fears how this will impact his young child. This man asked Nick Cave, “Do you still believe in us human beings?”

Nick responded with this letter…

“Much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position, both seductive and indulgent. The truth is I was young and I had no idea what was coming down the line. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life, and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world of its very soul, and to understand that the world was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act as small as you like, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keep the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time we come to find this is so.”

Devastation comes in life. It may be from consequences of my own choice, or from the actions of others. It may be the unexplainable variance of a chromosome, or genetic sequence that influences physical existence and health. It may be the one cancer cell that resists my body’s immune defenses, and I am called to another battle. It might be through the deliberate actions of a few people in power that shift entire civilizations or organizations. I can do all things to deny and avoid devastation, and flatten my experience to a shallow existence, making it harder to be at-one with anyone else in their existence. Or I can acknowledge the transformative power of devastation, how it adds to the depth of my experience, and my power to create a future, with adversarial, warrior-like, hopeful love.