The sun was setting over neatly combed, green tea estates that covered the mountain slopes. Tall, interspersed silver oak trees stood guard. Clouds hung at eye level, every so often gliding onto the roads we traversed. When it did, our driver slowed the vehicle and turned on the fog lights. They lit the moisture. Everything we saw with complete clarity a moment before was obliterated in whiteness. I was sure we’d have to stop and let the cloud pass us by. But the driver, knowing a road lay before him, slowly and cautiously pressed on, eventually, bringing us to our picturesque destination.
Several years before this, a different type of fog surrounded me. It was internal, within my mind, and felt dark and heavy. It deepened when I was working in a field that I had no interest in. My desire was to switch careers and become a writer, but I believed that I was cowardly and that I couldn’t change. I felt that the people around me could never see my points of view. Believing that none of us could change meant I was sure that my circumstances couldn’t either. I told myself that they were fixed and immutable. That I would always be stuck in a joyless profession. I had lost hope in myself, the people around me and in the possibility of change. I was fatalistically resigned to my predicament, refusing to allow myself to imagine a different future. I was dreaming of freedom in death because I couldn’t see liberty in life. As long as I felt there was no hope, there was no reason to press on.
Hope is our ability to visualize a path beyond the metaphorical fog. To look past our current difficulty and see the possibility of a different, empowering scenario. Hope is, therefore, a creative effort through which we allow ourselves to imagine what does not seem to exist yet and brainstorm and come up with ways to make that imagined future real. Hope requires a degree of optimism. It also needs us to have some confidence in our abilities and some trust in the grace that will be extended to us. Hope requires courage.
Contrarily, the absence of hope is marked by an intense preoccupation with our current struggles. The fog of our present problems appears as if it is the only truth. It feels final, like this will always be our experience. It demands all our anxious attention so much so that we cannot think of a cheerful future after it. In our despair, we are stuck. For who would push through a fog on a treacherous terrain if they do not believe a road exists to carry them to their destination? Doesn’t it sound illogical and irresponsible to do so? Thus, when we have no hope, we don’t move. When we don’t move, our circumstances don’t change. The future remains as the present is. And our hopelessness, our feeling that nothing can change, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This can be a monumental problem because the absence of hope impacts not only us but others and our world at large. For instance, we will not work towards justice on earth if we do not have hope for the world. I am reminded of a conversation from a year back. Someone cautioned my husband and me to not lose sight of the future. We were both focussing our work on bringing equity and hearing the voices of marginalised people groups. Our friend, however, explained that this should not be our priority. He felt that this world is fatally flawed and that it cannot be redeemed. Thus, the prophetic promise is that God would one day destroy it in order to bring a new one. “Why work towards improving a world destined for destruction?” he asked. “We should instead be praying for the one to come.” It seemed to me that this person had given up hope on this world. When there is no saving it, working towards improving it seems unnecessary and misguided.
By contrast, Jesus, who inspires people, whether Christian or not, demonstrated considerable optimism towards life on earth. The extent of His hope for others in this world is illustrated in an incident in chapter 12 of the biography of Jesus recorded by His disciple John. Four days after Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, Jesus arrived at the grieving house where He had a conversation with Martha, Lazarus’ sister. “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus said. Martha replied that she knows he will rise at the last day (perhaps around the time when the new earth would appear). Jesus did not deny her statement, but neither did he stop at the assumption that the hope of life applied only to a remote future. He prayed, had the tomb stone rolled away, and called out to the dead man. Lazarus, wrapped in his burial clothes, walked out of the tomb. But Lazarus was mortal. Jesus knew that after He raised him, Lazarus would inevitably die once more. Yet, that did not hinder Him. Jesus brought Lazarus back to life anyway, possibly because He saw potential in Lazarus’ few extra years on this earth. Nothing fazed Jesus’ ability to see past the fog, even the seemingly permanent fog of death. From that place of unstoppable hope, Jesus was able to boldly act in ways that otherwise would have felt senseless.
Where hope exists, action can follow; thereby, when action is taken, change can follow. Where there is no hope, however, inaction is the most sensible decision. Thus, hope is the linchpin of change.
Any conversation on healing ourselves and our communities must be built on hope. We must be willing to lift our eyes, look into the personal and global chaos and haze and imagine what could lie beyond. Only when we do will we move towards it. And history teaches us that hope is not a fading mirage. It is a worthwhile endeavour. For when people hoped, communities came together. Side-lined leaders found their voices. Nations won their freedom. Systems began to shift to embrace diversity and allow equality and freedom for all. We have further to go. But we can get there only if we dare to hope.
