Expectant Hope

I had an interesting conversation the other day about the nature of hope...the dangers of it, to be exact.  Living a life that matters - life set against the backdrop of a larger story...His Story - is not without serious dangers.  In fact, perhaps the most frequent reason that people live truncated lives (even Christians, mind you) appears to be the fear of hope.  Clipping off the highs of life through limited expectations is a natural mechanism that helps us exert a sense of control (despite the truth: control is not within our grasp).  Don't we all do this?  Short circuiting hope in order to reign in expectations and prevent against the seemingly inevitable crushing defeats that life stands all-too-ready and willing to deliver.

Wow - suddenly that seems very harsh.  Yet nonetheless true.

My theory on this topic was soundly rejected by the men I was with the other day.  As a result I've turned the idea over and again in my mind only to end up exactly where I started.  "I don't think it works," I said.  More to the point, speaking to the opposite end of the puzzle, I pointed out, "I'm not sure that hoping more actually equates to hurting more."

"Of course it does," said my friend.  And his logic seemed right.  He pointed out that the larger story called for more faith, which engenders hope and leads to love...and that all of that was risky.  Riskier, it would seem, than cutting hope short - although he went on to argue the merits of that risk.  My friend would never suggest that anyone settle for a smaller life than the one Christ promises...and he trusts (through faith) that the risk of pain is worth the hope of something more.

At the time I agreed.  I still do, regarding the risk I mean.

One quick note: I would certainly draw a distinct line between the idea of "hope" and that of "expectation."  Expectations, of themselves, seem to indicate a point of view that understands and anticipates the best outcome - a point of view that we each lack given our perspective from "within" the story.  Hope engenders a sense of wonder and faith that the Lord has something wonderful waiting for us in the midst of our circumstance...an "ever-increasingness" that might only be understood looking backward, with the benefit of new and better perspective (perhaps even outside of this life).

But I also feel like we can apply specific circumstances that blur the ideas of hope and expectation while still demonstrating that our risk in hope is not, necessarily, a greater fall than having not risked at all.  Well, to e clear: not risking at all is the most terrible risk, in my opinion...so let's instead say "risking less" or living habitually with "truncated risk."

I've heard and read about men who climb mountains.  I have no desire to follow in their footsteps, by the way.  When these men take off on their expeditions they plan, pack and make their way to base camps where they map out and make final preparations for the ascent.  As they make their way up the mountain, they establish new camps at higher elevations until, at some point, they reach the last post before the final climb.  As they journey upward they continually set new baselines - foundations - upon which they climb to the next level...and the next.

Is not hope the same?

Marathon runners train for months in preparation of 26 miles.  Rigorous training.  Pacing.  Even recruiting - I understand that many enlist the aid of companion runners who join them for the last 8 miles or so to help them finish strong.  Each mile they run takes them closer to the finish line...or to failure.  And every stride is taken in hope.

So what happens when failure strikes?  When their bodies simply quit?

Given all the time, training and effort...all of the collective hope and, yes, even expectation.  Would any of these people point to failure and, if they were forced to "graph" their experience, draw such a colossal drop at the end of the inexorable climb that it fell BELOW the original baseline?  Even in death, I wonder if there is a recorded instance of a mountain climber falling LOWER than the original base camp...the literal foot of the mountain (or anything quite near it).  Or, in the case of a collapsed marathon runner, (like the one featured in the Gatorade commercial, perhaps) dropping to his knees mere feet from the finish line...doesn't that still mean he's something like 25.8 miles further along?  A tragic end, yes...but one that eclipses every step that went before it?

I know the hopes in our life aren't quite so clean as these.  Nor are the disappointments.  But I would make a simple plea against this idea of a proportional hope-to-loss ratio.  In fact I think there is a strong argument for "loss" being a relative constant...while hope is more like a multiplier.  I mean to say that our hopes build upon one another...hope begetting hope.  Even when hope is so deeply entwined with expectation.  As the hope piles up, our failings never fall so far as to reset our experience of life to something that approximates zero...or below.

Perhaps the metaphors and mathematical illustrations don't do this idea the justice it deserves.  Perhaps the very idea of graphing hope is as foolish as the poetic graph students were told to rip from their textbooks in "Dead Poets Society."

Perhaps my friend is right when he says that hope is risk...but risk well worth taking.

But maybe the real danger lies in cutting hope short.  Because when disappointment strikes and our foundations are shallow, we find ourselves far closer to truly "bottoming out" than we could ever have feared.