The Discipline of Hope
I read these words recently from a writer named Kate Bowler. She was speaking of this time of year that in the Christian tradition is called Advent, which is a time of waiting. A time when people may not know what is ahead, but are encouraged to wait anyway. And to practice the discipline of hope within this waiting time. This kind of a hope, the disciplined kind, is marked by joy, love, and peace, “even though,” as Wendell Berry wrote, “you have considered all the facts.”
So what to do when the season is also accompanied by frantic racing; by feeling unprepared and ill-equipped; by feeling stretched too thin emotionally, physically, financially; by heartache and grief? I suppose this is why it must be a discipline. And why it’s important, perhaps, not to wish or pray for more hope, but to become aware of what it already looks like in our lives.
Making hope a discipline was enhanced for me when I went on a journey to search for daily delight. Yet, it began by cultivating a greater wholeness in my brain. When the biggest waves come and the ocean waters are murky and unseeable, it takes some discipline not to resort to all the patterns that disarm hope or joy or peace (you know, like trying to control life, feeling irritated that life’s uncontrollable, drinking and eating to numb the lack of control. Oh wait, is that just me?)
Our brains are endlessly fascinating, orchestrated to be whole and to allow us to feel wholeness. And while there are two sides that at one time were generalized into spheres with separate jobs, it’s better understood now that each side equally participates in language, in creation, in analysis and in reasoning. However, some very interesting work from Iain McGilchrist, has reframed this even more and created a theory of the bihemispheric brain. While each side is engaged equally in our many activities, they’re engaged differently. Psychologist Chuck DeGroat explains this as such: “The right hemisphere sees context, while the left hemisphere focuses in with precision. The right makes big connections, while the left makes careful and logical observations. The right holds paradox, while the left chooses sides…the left needs certainly and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibiliities in suspension together wihout premature closure on one outcome.”
This is how hope becomes a discipline. In order to even perceive that hope is a possibility, or to become aware of how hope is already part of our lives, we have to be in a whole-brained state. If we are locked into our sympathetic nervous system (flight/fight), that’s not possible. In this state, the limbic system hijacks the brain’s ability for higher thinking, locking us into a more left-brained way of seeing the world. So, we’re less likely to perceive outside binary, logical, fact-based thinking and to close our minds to bigger possibilities. Hope doesn’t live there.
Living in hope requires a willingness to see joy within grief, to see the bigger picture connections, and to look at a situation within its context. This is a very important discipline indeed.
One of my favorite poems is one about a dream, in which the heart is a honeycomb where everything that has ever happened in one’s life, get churned and churned until it is honey. When we move into greater wholeness, we have access to live from the heart. Living from the heart enables us to churn the whole of life into the greatest sweetness. I like to imagine hope here buzzing like one tiny bee.
For each upcoming week of December, I’ll send full paid subscribers a practice for cultivating greater wholeness, more hopefulness. If you are not a paid subscribers, would like to be, but can’t swing it, please reach out to me. I would be happy to help.
For this week, let’s keep it simple. Stop now, rest your hands as comfortably as possible, close your eyes, take 3 slow breaths in and out. Now make a short list—how is hope already at play in your life?
Imagining a good future for your children? This seems like hope.
Watching a flickering candle add warm lighted beauty to a space? Hope.
Feeling gratitude for absolutely anything? Definitely hope.
Seeing some goodness in other human beings? Yup, that’s hope.
Can you just sit and notice the changing sky? This reminds me of hope.
Hope doesn’t have to arrive with bells or big extraordinary feats. Sometimes, it comes dressed in life’s usual. Kind of like one tiny bee buzzing.