“Don’t get your hopes up.”
I wonder how many times I’ve said those words to my kids, parishioners, maybe most of all, to myself.
“Will she get here soon?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“It won’t cost much will it?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Will I be over this illness before Christmas?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
I just had that last conversation with myself a few minutes ago.
I’ve had some kind of bug since the weekend before Thanksgiving. It feels like a mild case of the flu. I’m not really sick. I’m just SO tired all the time. Saw my doctor. Getting tested. Keep thinking I’m getting better. Even this morning, I feel pretty good. Maybe I’ll be over this in a day or two. But, I’ve said that so many times in the past month that a little voice inside is saying, “Don’t get your hopes up.”
It’s a funny voice for me to be hearing this time of the year. After all, for Christians, this is Advent. It is precisely the time we set aside for getting our hopes up.
It’s a strange time to be doing it, of course. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you may have noticed the nights are longer and the days are either so gloomy you wonder if the sun forgot to rise, or they are so bright and cold that tears come to your eyes. It does not encourage optimism the way the days in May do.
But then, hope isn’t optimistic. It isn’t realistic, either.
The Bible tells a story about a childless couple who should have been heading for assisted living. They set out instead for a new land because they hoped that they would have more babies than you can count. Can you imagine?
Hope sees swords being beaten into plowshares and the billions we spend on “defense” being used to feed the hungry. Can you imagine?
Hope sees a world where the lion and the lamb lie down together, and human beings live in peace with their environment instead of destroying it. Can you imagine?
Hope sees peace on earth and goodwill toward all people. Can you imagine?
Yes, we can, for some reason. Human beings keep hoping. One measure of how powerful this hope is the amount of time, effort, and money that goes into telling us not to get our hopes up.
Pay attention to how many times you are told every day that the world is a dangerous place. No wonder we need to spend more and more on new ways to kill each other.
Right now I am being bombarded with messages about how corrupt my government is and always has been and always will be. Who am I to hope for a day when justice will roll down like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream?
I am told over and over again that rich people need tax breaks so that they can create jobs. Poor people, on the other hand, are a drain on the public treasury and if they don’t have homes and food and health care that is their problem. Who am I to hope for a day when the poor will be fed and the rich will be sent away hungry?
I am told over and over that it will ruin our economy to reduce carbon emissions and besides, the climate isn’t changing. Who am I hope for a day when the desert will bloom and earth will rejoice and sing?
It takes a lot of effort to tell us not to get our hopes up
But, it works, kind of. There are a lot of people who are frightened of their neighbors, to say nothing of strangers. There are people who are completely cynical about the possibility of justice. There are those so caught up in the rat race to become one of those billionaires who don’t pay taxes, that they no longer have much hope, except that they hope they are dead before the world becomes unlivable.
But, hope has a way of staying alive. Or, maybe more precisely. It keeps coming back after we kill it. In a way, the whole Bible is a story about hope dying and being . . . reborn, like a new baby.
As I finish writing this, I’m running out of energy, again. Looks like today won’t be the day I get better. I should not have gotten my hopes up.
But, I hope that, even if I never get better, I learn something from this illness. I have not felt so useless since I was a little kid. Maybe I will learn something I knew back then that I forgot. My worth as a human being does not come from what I can do, but who I am. And maybe, even if my hopes are dashed every day, I will learn how to keep on hoping.