On Cynicism [Part 2] — Hope

After a bru ­tal series of Christ ­mas shifts working in the  Emergency Room, I had finally come home for the hol ­i ­days.  My mother and I were in the kitchen, talk ­ing like we used to.  We had seen and loved the new  Les Mis ­er ­ables  film, and so I brought up an inter ­est ­ing ques ­tion from an  inter ­view with Saman ­tha Barks,  who played Eponine:

Inter ­viewer: I think aside from “I Dreamed a Dream”, “On My Own” is prob ­a ­bly one of the most loved songs of the musi ­cal, and I think it’s fas ­ci ­nat ­ing that the two most rec ­og ­nized and loved are just the two most heart ­break ­ing songs, so what does it say about us as an audi ­ence that the songs that we con ­nect with are the most heart ­break ­ing  songs?

My mother was quiet as she thought about it.  “I think,” she said, “that it is some ­thing we all share in com ­mon.  We all suf ­fer, and know what it means to lose a dream or to be dis ­ap ­pointed.  We all know how it  feels.”

In those moments, I was reminded of how much of her life and our fam ­ily his ­tory was filled with a tragedy not too differ ­ent from that of  Les Mis ­er ­ables.  Half of our fam ­ily tree was miss ­ing or unknown, scat ­tered and wiped out dur ­ing the war in China.  My grand ­par ­ents’ his ­to ­ries were char ­ac ­ter ­ized by their flight from the war: watch ­ing mas ­sacres of school ­mates while hid ­ing in the bushes, step ­ping on dead bod ­ies to avoid land ­mines, being traf ­ficked via hay carts and ships in order to seek refuge abroad.  My par ­ents grew up in the grind ­ing poverty of rural vil ­lages, their child ­hood over ­shad ­owed by the threat of immi ­nent war, their edu ­ca ­tion grimly dri ­ven by the hope of an oppor ­tu ­nity to emi ­grate to the  US so that they could form a fam ­ily here . . . so that their future chil ­dren —mean ­ing I —could have a bet ­ter  life.

With ­out know ­ing my thoughts, my mother spoke again.  “I really like  that song from the car ­riage’ where he has the lit ­tle girl sleep ­ing in his lap and real ­izes that every ­thing is dif ­fer ­ent now he has a child.”  She paused.  “You know, every ­thing is dif ­fer ­ent when there is a child.  Your whole world changes.”

*****

“I have had this all my life, and I am going to get wid of  it!”

“Rid of it,” her ther ­a ­pist corrected.

“W-right.”  She turned her head to grin at us, and I couldn’t stop smil ­ing.  We were all lying on exer ­cise mats in the ther ­apy rooms because, as the ther ­a ­pist taught us, we could use “gwav ­ity” to help roll those “r’s” bet ­ter.  I was sure she was one of the therapist’s favorite patients: dili ­gent, focused, and with a per ­son ­al ­ity com ­posed entirely of laugh ­ter and light.  In less than fif ­teen min ­utes, through lis ­ten ­ing to her “chawming pwonun-sheation,” I had already named her as a favorite.  Few of my lit ­tle patients were as mature, knowl ­edge ­able, and thrillingly artic ­u ­late at the dig ­ni ­fied age of  seven.

And in that moment, I thought about the  New ­town mas ­sacre  and the fact that there must have been pre ­cious lit ­tle dif ­fer ­ence between any of those chil ­dren and this young girl who was now sprin ­kling glit ­ter on a craft snow ­man, that even the best and bright ­est of us still live in that same world of terrors.

*****

My mother spoke again.  “My favorite song is that one Jean Val ­jean prays, about  bring ­ing him home  . . . it is such a beau ­ti ­ful prayer.  He says, ‘You can take, you can give . . . If I die, let me die; let him live . . . bring him  home.’”

We talked some more, then she said this: “Life is filled with such suf ­fer ­ing, you know.  There is so much sor ­row . . . but there are moments when God  saves.”

That night, I went to my old bed ­room and pulled a stack of jour ­nals off the book ­case.  They were etched eight, nine, ten years ago with an illegible scrawl that reflected the tired and stress-filled times they were writ ­ten in.  I leafed through the  many yel ­lowed pages of thought-scratch, reliv ­ing those moments of anx ­i ­ety and worry.  So many of them were des ­per ­ate calls to God about things I no longer remem ­ber now, reflect ­ing cri ­sis after cri ­sis that seem triv ­ial and incon ­se ­quen ­tial now.  I wanted to laugh at the lit ­tle boy, at his deep inse ­cu ­ri ­ties and obses ­sion with doubt and suf ­fer ­ing, and say, “You haven’t seen any ­thing  yet.”

But I didn’t because I real ­ized that even I, the same boy a decade later, am still immersed in my own world of sor ­rows, con ­flicts, despair, and  cyn ­i ­cism.  At times of newness and regeneration, like spring and especially Easter, we are hope ­ful that the old wounds of our past will heal, that we can assume a new and a fresh start, that the world will be a bet ­ter and brighter place . . . if not for us, then at least for our chil ­dren, the icons of inno ­cence and hope.  But this belies the expe ­ri ­ences of our own sor ­did his ­tory as human ­ity and as indi ­vid ­ual humans.  Is our redemp ­tion progres ­sive?  Does any ­thing ever change?  Are our cries for sal ­va ­tion  heard?

Henri Nouwen writes about this in his last book,  Can You Drink the Cup?,  scripted dur ­ing his final years as min ­is ­ter at  l’Arche Day ­break, a com ­mu ­nity of those with intel ­lec ­tual disabilities:

There is Tracy, com ­pletely par ­a ­lyzed, but with a bright mind, always strug ­gling to find ways to express her feel ­ings and thoughts.  There is Susanne, not only men ­tally dis ­abled but also reg ­u ­larly bat ­tered by inner voices that she cannot con ­trol.  There is Loretta, whose dis ­abil ­ity causes her to feel unwanted by fam ­ily and friends and whose search for affec ­tion and affir ­ma ­tion throws her into moments of deep despair and depres ­sion.  There are David, Fran ­cis, Patrick, Jan ­ice, Carol, Gordie, George, Patsy . . . each of them with a cup full of sorrow . . .

And for me things are not very dif ­fer ­ent.  After ten years of liv ­ing with peo ­ple with men ­tal dis ­abil ­i ­ties and their assistants, I have become deeply aware of my own sorrow-filled heart.  There was a time when I said: “Next year I will finally have it together,” or “When I grow more mature these moments of inner dark ­ness will go,” or “Age will dimin ­ish my emo ­tional needs.”  But now I know that my sor ­rows are mine and will not leave me.  In fact I know they are very old and very deep sor ­rows, and that no amount of pos ­i ­tive think ­ing or opti ­mism will make them less.  The ado ­les ­cent strug ­gle to find some ­one to love me is still there; unful ­filled needs for affir ­ma ­tion as a young adult remain alive in me.  The deaths of my mother and many fam ­ily mem ­bers and friends dur ­ing my later years cause me con ­tin ­ual grief.  Beyond all that, I expe ­ri ­ence deep sor ­row that I have not become who I wanted to be, and that the God to whom I have prayed so much has not given me what I have most desired . . .

Whose cup is this?  It is our cup, the cup of human suf ­fer ­ing.  For each of us our sor ­rows are deeply per ­sonal.  For all of us our sor ­rows, too, are universal . . . Jesus, the man of sor ­rows, and we, the peo ­ple of sor ­row, hang there between heaven and earth, cry ­ing out, “God, our God, why have you for ­saken  us?” . . .

In his immense lone ­li ­ness, he fell on his face and cried out: “My Father, if it is pos ­si ­ble, let this cup pass me by” (Matthew 26:39).  Jesus couldn’t face it.  Too much pain to hold, too much suf ­fer ­ing to embrace, too much agony to live through.  He didn’t feel he could drink that cup filled to the brim with sorrows.

Why then could he still say yes?  I can’t fully answer that ques ­tion, except to say that beyond all the abandon ­ment expe ­ri ­enced in body and mind Jesus still had a spir ­i ­tual bond with the one he called Abba.  He pos ­sessed a trust beyond betrayal, a sur ­ren ­der beyond despair, a love beyond all fears.  This inti ­macy beyond all human inti ­ma ­cies made it pos ­si ­ble for Jesus to allow the request to let the cup pass him by become a prayer directed to the one who had called him “My Beloved.”  Notwith ­stand ­ing his anguish, that bond of love had not been bro ­ken.  It couldn’t be felt in the body, nor thought through in the mind.  But it was there, beyond all feel ­ings and thoughts, and it main ­tained the com ­mu ­nion under ­neath all dis ­rup ­tions.  It was that spir ­i ­tual sinew, that inti ­mate com ­mu ­nion with his Father, that made him hold on to the cup and pray: “My Father, let it be as you, not I, would have it” (Matthew 26:39).

Jesus didn’t throw the cup away in despair.  No, he kept it in his hands, will ­ing to drink it to the dregs.  This was not a show of willpower, staunch deter ­mi ­na ­tion, or great hero ­ism.  This was a deep spir ­i ­tual yes to Abba, the lover of his wounded heart. . . .

Our cul ­ture tends towards an inflex ­i ­ble sense of opti ­mism and human ­ism.  We are con ­vinced that true joy and human actu ­al ­iza ­tion must come through the erad ­i ­ca ­tion of pain, suf ­fer ­ing, and sor ­row.  It comes as lit ­tle sur ­prise then that we hide away the sick and suf ­fer ­ing in hos ­pi ­tals and men ­tal insti ­tu ­tions and ghet ­toes, or that con ­ver ­sa ­tions about suf ­fer ­ing are branded as cyn ­i ­cal and faux pas (unless they revolve around the trivial).  It is only log ­i ­cal that our per ­spec ­tive on hope is sen ­ti ­men ­tal and, when bru ­tally chal ­lenged by events like New ­town or other cor ­rup ­tions of inno ­cence, eas ­ily sus ­cep ­ti ­ble to cyn ­i ­cism and despair.

In the per ­son of Jesus Christ, whose entrance into the world was hum ­ble and threat ­ened by scan ­dal and vio ­lence, we are reminded that hope must be divine.  It must derive itself from the exter ­nal, the invis ­i ­ble, and the eter ­nal if it is to pose any help to our intractable, super ­fi ­cial, and fickle human ­ity.  It can ­not be the mere absence or abo ­li ­tion of suf ­fer ­ing; it must engage it, over ­come it, trans ­form it.  It does not begin from a posi ­tion of strength or intim ­i ­da ­tion; it starts with weak ­ness so that it might express itself in desire and, through satisfaction, bring joy.  It has no ground ­ing in ide ­al ­ism, the ­ory, or abstrac ­tion; it instead comes from the close ­ness, the sweet ­ness, and the affec ­tion of Jesus Christ, the incar ­na ­tion of all we hope for.

It is this recog ­ni ­tion of Christ’s pres ­ence in the hard ­ness of life that brings us lib ­erty and enables us to hope freely and chal ­lenge the dark ­ness of cyn ­i ­cism, unbur ­dened by the restric ­tions of sen ­ti ­men ­tal ­ity and its incon ­gruity with real ­ity.  We can live and thrive in the dark ­est cor ­ners of the hos ­pi ­tals, nurs ­ing homes, men ­tal insti ­tu ­tions, funeral homes, labor camps, and ghet ­toes sim ­ply because Jesus says he lives and thrives there as  well . . . because he has risen and resurrected from the grave.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inher ­i ­tance, the king ­dom  pre ­pared for you since the cre ­ation of the world.  For I was hun ­gry and you gave me some ­thing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me some ­thing to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me,  I was sick and you looked after me,  I was in prison and you came to visit  me.‘

“Then the right ­eous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hun ­gry and feed you, or thirsty and give you some ­thing to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or need ­ing clothes and clothe you?    When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit  you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, what ­ever you did for one of the least of these broth ­ers of mine, you did for me.’” — Jesus (Matthew 25)

For you did not receive a spirit  that makes you a slave again to fear,  but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba,  Father.”    The Spirit him ­self tes ­ti ­fies with our spirit  that we are God’s chil ­dren.    Now if we are chil ­dren, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we  share in his suf ­fer ­ings  in order that we may also share in his glory. —Romans 8

I want to know  Christ and the power of his res ­ur ­rec ­tion and the fel ­low ­ship of  shar ­ing in his suf ­fer ­ings,  becom ­ing like him in his death,  and so, some ­how, to attain to the res ­ur ­rec ­tion  from the dead. — Philip ­pi ­ans  3

Geno ­cide, mas ­sacre, poverty, dis ­ap ­point ­ment, cru ­ci ­fix ­ion, famine, naked ­ness, death, or sword; together with Christ, with the fel ­low ­ship of suf ­fer ­ing and the drink ­ing of its cup to its dregs, we shall have our over ­com ­ing.  Some ­how, we shall attain.

He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed.