Hope and Freedom

What is hope?

Is hope real?

Is hope possible?

Does hope bring to light what is possible?

Does freedom demand the loss of all hope?

Can freedom be free if it has any influences like longing, desire, hope, belief, or any other attachments?

All of my life, I’ve been taught that hope is something that I just grit my teeth and believe in, sort of like faith. Faith is based on what I cannot see, hear, or prove. Is hope? Is hope based on my willingness and ability to believe hard enough, on my sheer stubbornness and perseverance in the face of all adversity? Does hope exist in service of my own wants and desires?

I’ve been scratching my head for about 50 years, trying to understand biblical definitions of faith and hope:

Hebrews 11:1-6 King James Version (KJV)

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I used to blame this head scratching on the King James Version’s outdated English translation that was based on the Latin Vulgate which was translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that were not even original. Well here is a tease for you. Here it is in modern English. The first version is regular and the other is the “readers” version…?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1-6&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1-6&version=NIRV


I digress and am still just as confused. But at least now I admit I have no idea what this sort of hope is or what it is based on or if it is real or even possible. As I tried to figure out hope, for most of my life, I believed that my only source should be the Bible.

But from what I could see, that use of hope is in the future, which we cannot know and is not guaranteed. So it becomes hope in a future that if I believe hard enough it may or may not come true. Even the dictionary definition supports this: “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

Or it means hope in God and his attributes. But I now see that by far the greatest attributes of this God is his silence and his invisibility. So where does that leave me? Having hope and faith that there is something, anything beyond this deafening silence and blind invisibility? I don’t know. But it seems to me we need hope if we want to survive. But is it the hope I found in the Bible?

Here’s an interesting one: “But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.” (Psalm 22:9) Well, at least this hope is based on what is very tangible and not invisible or silent. At least it is anchored in the present and not the future, or the silence, or the invisibility.

Here is a verse from the Bible that has been propelling me forward and yet yanking me back like a leash around my neck much of my life.

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)

Most of my life, I interpreted this to be referring to my Christian obligation to evangelize and save the lost as part of my Righteous Savior Syndrome.

On the other hand, I don’t think this verse refers to being ready to share your latest Christmas list of the things you hope to get or the girls / boys you hope to date / marry. The future is outside of our scope. Both the past and future are our greatest distractions from living life here and now. They are our greatest distractions from being FREE! No matter how hard we try, we have no control over the past or the future. All we have is right here, right now. Freedom can only be experienced right here, right now. If hope is some future thing, then it becomes a distraction to true freedom as we slip away into dreamland.

“Freedom implies that there is no authority in inquiry. You are the teacher and the disciple in yourself. You are inquiring and learning. Therefore freedom implies the absolute cessation of every kind of authority.” (Krishnamurti, Public Talk 1 in San Francisco, California, 20 March 1975)

I’m beginning to understand what is meant by authority here. It refers to any external influence or even any internal influence that has not been vetted through deep discernment. So often we have voices and stories in our heads that are arguing and distracting us; pulling us this way and that, battering us like the storms that they are. Storms in our head driving us every which way. This is not freedom! Sometimes hope can be a part of those storms when it is caught up in the future. Hope anchored in the future is nothing more than desire, longing, or even lust; depending on how strong it is. Hope that distracts and destroys our freedom is nothing more than a participant with voices and stories in our head that have been downloaded from culture and accepted for no other reason than because someone said it was so, and thus it was.

In order for hope to exist as something more than a distraction from that which is essential in life, then, by definition, it would have to enrich and enhance our experience of this present moment. If this sort of hope is real, then maybe you can be “prepared to give an answer… for the hope that you have.” ...right now.

Now I can more clearly read these ideas about false hope and true hope if I learn to distinguish between hope that is anchored in the future and hope that is anchored deeply in each present moment.

"Hope is passion for what is possible." ~ Søren Kierkegaard 

"Hope, hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead."
~ Barack Obama

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

Can we stay alive, can we “keep on” without hope?

Is hope necessary for life?

Does freedom require that we let go of all hope?

Losing all hope is freedom

“‘Losing all hope was freedom.’ I came across this particular phrase a couple of years ago in a movie called the Fight Club. When I first heard it, it seemed nonsensical and downright depressing. I mean, if a person loses all hope, then they have no reason to live right?. However, over the next 24 months, I learned that not only was I wrong, but this counter-intuitive approach to life brought me a certain freedom and peace for which I yearned for years.”

“Until one day, I realized that the only way I could be truly happy is if I let go of the need to be liked by others. Then something amazing happened, I really let go- just like that. I made a conscious decision to live life on my own terms, to put myself first before everything else and focused my attention inward.

“So yes, lose all expectations that society and people have for you and see for yourself what you truly want. Because at the end of the day, when you are on your deathbed you will be much more fulfilled having lived a life on your own terms than living a life pleasing others.”
https://medium.com/@shivakumar_99719/why-losing-all-hope-is-indeed-freedom-2a9346954944


Longing, desire, and hope anchored in the future are all ways of grasping and clinging on to what is nothing. If it is in the future then it is nothing because the future is not here. If we think it will give us fulfillment, then it is nothing because fulfillment comes from within. Desire and longing are both ways of being discontent with who we are, who we aren't, what we do not have, and what we do have, here and now.

Hope anchored in each present moment that we have been granted can be what keeps us going. We must learn to BE HERE NOW. BE NOW HERE.

And as St.Paul put so brilliantly: "Hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, yet what doth he hope for?"
Hope is a virtue only when the future is uncertain. (Rajiv Pande)



I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

–T.S. Eliot, excerpt from “East Coker”, Four Quartets

Hope is:

Hope is seeing
Hope is light
in darkness

Hope is possibility
where I dwell
in each moment

Hope is freedom.
Freedom to choose
without fear.

Hope exists forever
in each and every
present moment.

The Gates of Hope—A Poem by Victoria Safford
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.