Active Hope: a Rosh Hashanah Sermon

What are you afraid of?  What keeps you up at night?  Is it something immediate?  At work or school?  With your family?  Is it money or health?  What about the global fears?  The international rise of fascism and the future of democracy?  The pressure cooker of our culture and the hazards of our new technologies?  The growing loneliness epidemic?  The fragility of our planet?  The security of the Jewish people and the very real costs of maintaining that security, or its illusion?  We live in a fear-soaked culture where our 24-hour news cycle and the miracle/gift/hazard of having it at our fingertips, in our pockets and on our wrists, gives us a constant portal into a world of fear, a world reacting from fear, as if the everyday fears and challenges of our lives weren’t sufficient to put us all on edge.   Years ago I read a book by an author I can’t recall with a title I can’t remember (I’ve tried so hard to find it over the years, and failed) that changed forever how I think about fear.  This author had a terrible horseback riding accident which led to a long and painful recovery.  When she was well again she was desperately afraid of getting back on a horse and really any manner of risk taking.  In response, she became determined to make fear her friend.  She wanted to be able to look over and see fear and acknowledge it without wishing it away.  She realized that fear was going to be with her now, in a new way, and she didn’t want it to stop her from a robust and amazing life.  So she practiced taking fear along on her journey.  Each year she would set herself a new challenge, dog sledding, skydiving, slot canyoning, scary stuff that required navigating fear.  And she worked with intention on her capacity to be with fear without letting fear run the show.   The creators of the Pixar film Inside Out, imagine for us, literally draw for us, a picture of a control board in our brains where various emotions take turns managing the wheel, as it were.  The effect is funny and deeply thought provoking, based as it is, on actual brain science.  In the original film there are five core emotions, one of which is fear.  Now when I think about taking fear along, I can picture him: he looks like a skinny purple guy in a bowtie.  He’s funny and cute but we all know that having fear at the wheel is exhausting, unsettling, and limits our capacity to be whole people, healthy communities, and capable world builders.   When I was a kid, my family of five would sometimes pile into my grandfather’s Oldsmobile, together with my grandparents, to make the short ride to church.  Why we did not take two cars I do not know.  It might have had something to do with limited parking, something we at CBT know a little about.  But for whatever reason, my older brothers were always in the back with my mom and grandma.  And as the little girl, I was always wedged in the front between my grandpa and my dad.  This was in the days when car seats were like benches, so that front seat went straight across, no bucket seats, no middle console.  Still it was a squashy affair, wedged there in between dad and grandpa and trying to stay out of the way of grandpa’s driving.  I didn’t love it, but it was a short ride. I want to imagine this evening what it would look like to reorganize our front seats to be more like my Grampa’s Oldsmobile on those rides to church.  What if we could take fear out of the driver’s seat, not by banishing him to the trunk or the backseat through denial or distraction, pretending he isn’t there.  I want us to be honest about fear …  and I want him to slide over onto the passenger’s side, where my dad sat.  And then, in order to keep him over there, I want to invite you to tuck hope in between, like the squashy little girl I was.  I want you to make a little bonus space to nestle in some hope, as an antidote, or maybe even just a margin, a soft barrier, something to give us a little space from fear.  How would the short ride of this day, this week, this month, or the long ride of this life, change if hope were wedged into the front seat – making space between you and fear?  Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy and resiliency trainer Dr. Chris Johnstone in their book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy assert that hope has two meanings.  The first is a passive kind of hope, a simple wishfulness for what we want to be true to happen.  It’s an ephemeral kind of hope, easily squeezed out of the front seat when fear leans over to try and take the wheel.  It’s not solid enough to ground ourselves in, to hold the space.     In its place Macy and Johnstone want us to consider practicing active hope.  They write, “Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for.”  Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for.   They continue, “Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take in a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take concrete steps to move ourselves or the situation in that direction. “Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The…