Half Full

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Is the glass half full or half empty?  Perhaps trite, this is the textbook example of optimism.  In times when hope is important—and that may be always, but at times it’s really much more keenly felt—we need to see the glass filling again.  Emily Dickinson famously wrote “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.”  Although published posthumously, many refer to this poem when the glass starts to look empty.  Recently a friend pointed us to a more realistic version of this by the contemporary poet Caitlin Seida titled “Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat.”  It’s easily found with a web search but I’m hoping to buy Seida’s book because most poets have a difficult time of things.  The gist of it is that hope is a scrappy, gritty rodent that knows how to survive in a dark, noisome world.

Of course, the Bible has a lot to say about hope as well.  Sometimes we tend to see the half-empty glass of the judgment verses, but what truly makes it Scripture is the hope.  In fact, hope is all around if we look for it.  For example, I recently had to get a new set of glasses.  I really liked my old frames and they had stopped being produced.  I had to try something new.  This pair, instead of screw-hinges holding the arms on, has a mechanism that uses tension between the two pieces of metal so they retain their shape but can also be folded.  The end result is they don’t have a solid fixed “normal” position, but one which can be slightly adjusted because they’re more pliable than fixed screws (it’s clear why I’m not a technical writer).  In any case, their ability to adjust is a sign of hope. If things don’t look right, literally, a nudge can fix it.  You can find resilience even in your eyeglasses.

In times of difficulty doubt can be the thing with feathers.  What we need is one of those water-drinking birds.  You know, the kind that’s made of glass filled with a red liquid that bobs its head up and down into a glass of water.  (It turns out they have their own Wikipedia article under the title “Drinking bird.”)  Here is the ultimate symbol of hope that spans both Seida and Scripture.  The bobbing head always dips into the glass even though it can’t actually drink.  We might be tempted to say it’s a foolish waste of time.  With the correct perspective, however, it shows the glass to be half full. At least when seen through the lenses of hope.

This bird knows hope! Photo by Matt Flores on Unsplash

Optimism

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On the homepage of my website (of which this blog is a part) is the statement that jaded optimism lurks here.  I’ve been thinking a lot about optimism and hope lately.  Trying to change the way you think is difficult.  Musing with my wife the other day I realized—and this should’ve been obvious—that my optimism became “jaded” when I lost my job at Nashotah House.  You see, our lives have been uncertain since then.  The steady income of an academic job with a retirement plan, a future mapped out (at least a little) with summers free for research and travel, the flexibility to have time to contemplate; all of this fits my neurodivergent way of thinking.  Having suddenly to cope with finding an apartment, finding jobs (not vocations), losing retirement options, all of this has led to a turmoil that has lasted going on two decades now.

I need to challenge my jaded optimism into becoming real.  I keep coming back to Mark 9.24, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”  I’m not a materialist, although academia led me close to it a time or two.  The universe, however, is an untamed place.  We don’t know the trillionth of it, let alone the half.  We’ve figured out a good bit of the physics of this world and think that it applies the same everywhere in this infinite, expanding space-time.  Then we discovered quantum physics and quantum entanglement which looks more like religion than science.  It seems to me that optimism—hope—lies in a combination of what science tells us and what is traditionally called religion tells us.  You may call it “belief,” “intuition,” or “hope.”  Yes, when Pandora’s box was opened, only hope remained.

John William Waterhouse, Pandora (1896), public domain, via Wikimedia commons

There’s a parable in the story of Pandora.  As told by Hesiod, Pandora’s jar contained the gifts of the gods which escaped when Pandora opened it.  Thereby evil entered the world.  Yet one gift of the gods remained for humankind, and that was hope.  Arguably the most valuable gift of them all.  I have been letting my career malfunction at Nashotah House dominate and drive my outlook for far too long.  It will never cease to hurt, I know, but it’s time I learned the meaning of what the Pandora myth teaches us.  Myth, please understand, functions like religion.  It provides insight and guidance.  And the tale of Pandora, especially when things turn unexpectedly frightening, reminds us that hope is the only necessary gift of the gods.

In the Bleak Midwinter

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Labels. They can be problematic. Given our human brain structures, we are predisposed to patterns and categorization. Is it edible or not? Predator or prey? Like me or different from me? We constantly scan our world, categorizing as we go, holding our people, experiences, and places in a temporary, floating mode of immediate recognition. I’ve had people who read my blog ask me, “What are you?” My guess is that they want a simple, pat answer: Christian or not, religious or not, dangerous or not. The more specific the better, since the more precise the label the better fit the box we stuff you into will be. Given the trajectory of my unorthodox career, it is common for me to be labeled as “theologian.” It is a categorization I deny, but since the study of ancient texts and myths generally falls under the rubric of “theology” it is not entirely inappropriate. I prefer to leave theology to those more intelligent than myself.

It is with great joy, therefore, that a new blog has emerged from a worthy theologian. Bleak Theology makes its premiere today. I have known the talented writer, Burke, for some time. And I know that some fantastic things will appear on this blog. In its own words: “Bleak theology is anxious, but not despairing. It is pessimistic, but not hopeless. It is materialistic, but not idolatrous. It doesn’t always have hope, but it certainly would like to have that hope… It’s a theology that gazes troublingly up at Mt. Moriah; that sits in sack and ashcloth and resists cursing God and dying; that cries out that everything is meaningless (meaningless!); that sits by the rivers of Babylon and cries; that staggers away from the crucifixion disillusioned; and, after seeing the stone rolled back and the dead vanished, leaves the tomb and tells no one.” We have great things to anticipate. Melancholy is its own variety of joy, as some of us are continually discovering.

Labels. Some people make a lot of the alphabet soup one is legitimately able to put after one’s name. A friend once told me that he’d heard a Ph.D. insist on being called “Doctor” by the attendant when he pulled into a gas station. I have a label for such people, and it fits better than the one they prefer. I have known and worked for Ph.D.-bearing individuals who just as dumb as the rest of us. Sometimes even more so. Theology is not a discipline where advanced degrees are required, for either those who have them or those who don’t. The fact is we’re all thrown into this same world together and, like it or not, no one has the answers. Some may don their papal tiaras or their fancy academic robes with striped sleeves, and claim hegemony, but the truth is we are all seekers. The best company one might hope to find is with the person who honestly struggles. Embrace bleak theology and eschew easy classification. There may be no hope for us yet.