This Week We Light the Candle of Hope

The Christmas story begins with the rekindling of hope in an ancient promise. Mary is pregnant and an Angel says her baby will deliver his people from oppression and restore the throne of David. Anticipation is building among the faithful. While those who have given up hope in the prophecy call them fools. 

Hope is a virtue. A combination of the desire for something and the expectation that our desire will be fulfilled. It’s opposite is the sin of despair, which causes us to surrender our agency, abandon our dreams and refuse to take action on behalf of our desires. 

Christian tradition says that Hope is a gift from God, the candle lit in each of us at birth, and our job is to tend it.

A Personal Essay

I’ve just completed an optimism assessment by the Positive Psychology people and you could wipe the floor with my score. According to the report I’m pretty much hopeless.

The test result is quite a shock. I’ve taken a lot of initiative in my life for someone without hope. I’ve taken my share of chances and have something of a reputation for brave action in uncertain conditions.

As far as I can tell, the test attempts to measure how confident I am in my ability to deliver specified outcomes. But it’s my curious nature and experimental mindset, more than a sense of assurance, that moves me forward. I have an underlying belief that the world is full of opportunity and there is no need to stake oneself to any particular dream or outcome. My expectations carry a “this or something better/different/unexpected” rider.

I come to the conclusion that the results on my optimism test have more to do with flaws in the assessment instrument than any underlying hopelessness on my part.

According to psychologist Charles R. Snyder’s Hope Theory, hope has three components: a desired goal; the ability to see a pathway toward said desired goal, and, if no pathway is evident at the current time, a patient conviction that a pathway may emerge with time. 

Snyder calls hope an act of will. The opposite of the “excusing process” where, when faced with a desired but uncertain outcome, we begin to lower expectations, avoid taking action, and protect ourselves by not expecting too much.

I challenge myself to reflect on the hopes I have held and harboured through thick and thin. Not so many, but important ones.

When I left my traditional management job in 1996 to start a business in the brand new field of coaching, I hoped that I would be able to make a go of it. When I left my home and marriage, I hoped that I would be able to create a new home for myself and find fulfilment as a single woman. There were no backup plans in my mind. And even when a shadow of one flickered at the side of my eyes, I turned away from it. In this way I hoped myself into being, taking paths that opened to me, and holding fast in patient expectation when things got tough.

What hopes have I let go too easily? Put off due to inconvenience or an uncertain outcome? For the most part they have been hopes of expansion. Moving from a small pond to a bigger one. Gaining bigger platforms and broader recognition for my work. A bigger pay check for my efforts. In these cases my faith has not been strong enough to support my hope.

Has fear of trying and failing, being disappointed or embarrassed, caused me to shrink away from such hopes? Have I stayed smaller than my potential warranted because of the fear of embarrassment should I crash and not fly? It’s something to think about.

What about you?

Reflection Prompts

Where do you land on the continuum of hope? 

What do you most hope for in the coming year?

Where will you embrace the spirit of curious experimentation?

How will you cultivate a patient conviction when the path forward is unclear?

What is your best defence against despair?

Intentions

This year I will be hopeful.  

I will honour my hopes with curious experimentation and patient conviction.

I will reject the sin of despair.

A Blessing

As you light the candle of Hope today, I bless you with a rekindling of your desires, the opening of pathways for action, a shifting in the conditions that have thus far blocked your progress, that you will see the fulfilment of your desires. I bless you with a patient conviction that even when you are not able to see a pathway to what it is you most desire right now, one may yet emerge. Like Emily Dickinson, may you dwell in possibility throughout the coming year.