by Chris Paige
Spring 2005
for Constellation magazine
The Center for Progressive Christianity

The truth is that I find “hope” elusive – much in the way that “faith” and “joy” can be elusive.  My grasp on such powerful intangibles, so central to the Christian life, is much more dependent than I would like to admit on factors such as hormones, weather changes, and how much time I’ve spent in front of television media messages.  Naturally, it is also influenced by how I perceive the latest events in political, cultural and personal spheres.

Perhaps the more telling question for me to examine might be: “If I am a Christian, why is it sometimes so hard to find reasons to hope?” 

The Gospel message is a message of radical hope. There is tremendous power in the notion that God loves us right now, right where we are, right how we are, regardless.  Regardless of anything... Paul wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:38-39) To translate for myself, neither war nor the religious right nor electoral shenanigans nor poverty nor privilege nor personal shortcomings nor anything else in all creation can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  As a Christian, this is my hope.

In the midst of trials

There are times when that hope feels like more than enough to carry me.  For instance, my partner, Beth Stroud, was recently defrocked in a trial within the United Methodist Church.  The results of the trial were certainly disappointing – but, as a lesbian, living in a world that is so deeply riddled with religiously-justified heterosexism and homophobia, I did not find them surprising.  My realism about the prospects for a favorable verdict haven’t driven me to despair.  On the contrary, I remain quite hopeful.  Not only confident in the love of God, but also hopeful about the ways that God’s love is at work within the church. 

It’s hard for me to find the right words to talk about that hope.  While I was very encouraged by much of what I witnessed through the trial process, it was not a hope about particular outcomes.  Neither was it a hope grounded in the ability of humans – allies, adversaries, or otherwise –  to get it right.  Rather, it was a hope grounded in an overwhelming sense of God’s presence with us right there in the mess of it.  It was a hope born of a profound awareness that a much larger force was working in, through, and around the collection of imperfect humans gathered through those days.

By saying so, I do not mean to validate the intrusive questions, to excuse the tacit approval too often offered by allies in the middle, to legitimate the systemic violence that trial represents, or to approve of the verdict itself.  But neither do I intend to condemn those gathered who were prayerfully acting out of their own consciences and sense of duty within the United Methodist Church. The hope I speak of transcends all of that. 

This hope is something that I cannot rightly explain.  In the midst of “losing” a very public trial, paradoxically, hope was given to us.  It is not a hope that I mustered from within myself out of deep courage or insightful wisdom.  This hope was a gift that came from beyond me.  And I can only testify to the working of that hope, that grace, that love within our lives.

In pursuit of progress

Yet, as deeply as I believe in the promise of God’s love and as profoundly as I have sensed the Spirit at work in my life, I admit that it isn’t always enough to keep me hopeful.  There are many times when I have not felt so hopeful.  There are times when I find myself depressed and despairing.  At those times, I feel far removed from any confidence in God’s ability or determination to save me or guide me.

In trying to reconcile these times of despair with my other experiences of transcendent hope, I have to ask myself what am I hoping for?  To be brutally honest, what I’m often looking for is a confidence that things are going to get better, not worse.  I’m looking for hope that next week or next month or next year, I will have more of a sense of control than I do this week – that I will feel more secure, more comfortable, more connected, more fulfilled.  Whether I’m talking about a better job, fewer home repair problems, and less conflict in my life, or a better President, the end of the Iraq war, and a just economy, I admit that my sense of hope is all too bound up in outcomes and “progress.” 

With such a focus shaping my perspective, it is all too easy to lose sight of the very ordinary ways that God is alive and working transformation in the world.  I may not be focused on “success” as expressed through fame, fortune, and a white picket fence nuclear family, but  my concern for justice and harmony can be just as confining.   I get discouraged when things don’t go as I had hoped, and as a result it becomes harder to summon an authentic sense of gratitude for the graces, surprises, and blessings that comprise my daily life. 

The pursuit of “progress” is a core message in both the American mythos (from the “new world” to “manifest destiny” to the “American dream”) and Christian eschatology (from the “second coming” to the “New Jerusalem”).  For those of us who were raised as Christians in America, “progress” is how things “ought” to be. As a progressive Christian, I have sought to transform this American triumphalist trajectory from self-interest and individualism towards community and the greater good, but I remain enamored of “progress” nonetheless.  Indeed, as “progressives,” we take this “hope” as our own by claiming this label. 

Yet I fear that this cultural expectation shapes our emotional lives in complex ways.  While it can provide inspiration towards the pursuit of a better world, the related sense of expectation and entitlement can also result in deep despair and shame when events don’t unfold as we had hoped.  My commitment to “progress” can even limit my capacity to apprehend reality.  It becomes a lens through which I view the world – a lens which can prevent me from fully noticing what is going on around me. 

This “progress” fantasy is deeply ingrained in my cultural experience and then profoundly reinforced by all of the privileges I enjoy as a white, professional class, American, Christian.  While my life is not without obstacles, the number and kinds of barriers I confront in daily life are minimal compared with many in the world.  It is all too easy for me to confuse such personal privilege with a more universal optimism about what is possible. 

While I was able to stay hopeful during the trial, much more mundane setbacks in my daily life are often capable of getting me down.  Simple frustration can turn quickly into distracting levels of anger or despair or a drive to fix things.  Such emotional responses can be a normal part of the grieving process when life sends us disappointments.  But a focus on the emotional reaction can also distract us from examining the underlying assumptions and expectations that are at play in generating such deep disappointment in the first place.  While questions of how to manage our emotions are important, we should also be paying attention to the larger realities at work.

Beyond fragile optimism

One area I have experienced this dynamic at play is in relationship to racial dynamics among progressive Christians.  I was raised as a white liberal in the North, nearly a decade after the March on Washington and Dr. King’s Dream captivated the nation.  Growing up, I learned that racial prejudice was wrong, and I inherited a hope that love and kindness could (and would) change the world. One could say that I was hopeful about the prospects for race relations in the U.S.  For the most part, I have made my life among like-minded folk.

At some point in my life, I began experiencing racial conflict among progressive Christians at (predominantly white) progressive Christian gatherings. And I found it deeply confusing.  This is not the way things are supposed to be!  The natural reactions of anger, despair, and trying to fix things certainly circulated within my emotional system.

But what I was experiencing represented something deeper than a conflict among my peers and colleagues.  When I was able to look deeper, and to listen more carefully to the dynamics at play, I eventually recognized my own attachment to a white liberal fantasy of racial “progress.”  This fantasy was frustrated by any experience that undermined the fragile illusion of racial harmony among liberals or progressives.  Visible and recurring experiences of racial conflict threatened my self-identity, my worldview, and most certainly my hopeful outlook.

Being a lesbian has taught me a lot about the power of truth-telling.  Being immersed in a community that is so profoundly defined by the “coming out process,” has not only taught me about the real risks of truth-telling, but also about the potential for deep transformation.  When truth-telling is accompanied by deep listening, that space between us becomes holy.  It may be a painful space.  It may be a challenging space.  But in such an honest exchange, we let go of illusions that may be standing between us and a more authentic, less fragile hope.

This has also been my experience with racism. Facing the truth about the persistence of racism, even among well-intentioned white liberals like myself, has been strangely liberating.  I certainly still get upset about racism and white supremacy continues to shape the world I live in.  But letting go of this fantasy of racial “progress” has shifted my expectations.  I no longer feel entitled to racial harmony.  On the contrary, I now expect that centuries of racialized violence will impact my daily life in substantive and problematic ways. 

Paradoxically, this shift has not led me to despair.  It has opened the door to a more authentic hope!  I feel less fragile when conflict does arise.  I feel more empowered to actively discern how to be in relationship with the legacy of white supremacy that we have all inherited.  And I am less likely to take for granted the small victories of trust offered, relationships built, and God’s transformation working in the middle of it all.  It’s the same world I live in.  But a shift in my outlook has enabled hope to find me more readily.

Why is it sometimes so hard for me to find hope?  Because too often I go looking in the wrong places.  I look for hope in human outcomes and in “progress,” when those things can only bring me a fragile confidence and optimism at best.  A more authentic and enduring hope has chased me down in the heart of the struggle – when I am willing to face difficult realities, grieve my own limitations, and keep on moving forward anyways. Such hope comes from beyond me when I am willing to admit that I do not have the strength to make things right on my own. 

The world is a messy, broken, filthy place filled with imperfect and traumatized people.  But it’s when I take that broken mess seriously and open myself to it, that I am paradoxically empowered to sense the goodness of God’s mercy pulsing through all of creation.  Neither war nor the religious right nor electoral shenanigans nor poverty nor privilege nor personal shortcomings nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  As a Christian, this is my hope.
 

© 2005 Chris Paige

More articles on Hope from the Spring 2005 issue of Constellation magazine