The upcoming election has once again raised the anxiety level amongst large swaths of this country’s populace with heightened concerns for its outcome. For many people, there is a desperate sense of hope or despair dependent on the way it plays out. While attention to our nation's laws and leaders is a reasonable and responsible citizen concern, it seems that many have gone over the deep edge of fear with little capacity to retain hope or equanimity unless their votes win the day. Beyond the growing extremes of polarization, divisiveness, and unbridled nastiness that are increasingly displayed in this time of political decision, there seems to be an equally disturbing lack of hope and faith that will suffer the self-same defeat of the candidates who fail to win their election. This is evidence of a spiritual crisis. When hope and faith hinge upon outcome we have lost our wise way of being in the world.
Of course, such conditional hope is not limited to the political milieu. Any one of us can fall under the spell of superficial faith when we invest our sense of hope and well-being in external circumstances. And this seems to happen even among those who would profess to believe in God, attend worship services, and other faith-based practices. The contradiction is glaring unless seen through the lens of materialistic faith. Such faith ascribes belief in a higher power that is in control of external outcomes, which is why many people suffer a wholesale loss of faith when someone they love dies, or any other devastating outcome happens despite their fervent beseeching prayers for an alternate outcome that matches their desire. This kind of faith supposes that a mortal mind knows how a universe of infinite possibilities should play out, and imposes its own sense of what is right, and what is wrong on life events. Much akin to Job’s lament, there can be much confusion, doubt, and suffering, when one’s belief in a higher power is dependent upon outcomes matching expectations.
If we are to retain or restore hope amidst the vagaries of life and the willy-nilly spectrum of outcomes that do not bend to our will, we must embrace an opposite paradigm. Just as Jesus told those who believed that God and him, as the Messiah, could make things happen, “my kingdom is not of this world,” so we too must look within rather than without. Even a master of life such as Jesus suggested that there might be times when we cannot calm the sea or otherwise get our way. He said we will have trials and tribulations. Trials and tribulations are a given in this human life. But wait, there is reason for optimism, good cheer even, he said, for there is an overcoming power within us - an inner revolution that can lead us to freedom.
When we look to the outer world for evidence of our good, we bind ourselves by limiting our faith to a world of appearances and miss the deep eternal reality. We make gods out of circumstances and other people, which requires that they show up perfectly in order for us to be free and at peace. This is an abuse and misuse of faith that only leads to greater suffering. There is another way. It is what author, Cynthia Bourgeault, calls “mystical hope.” Such hope is not borne in the mind, but in the heart, where there is “an assurance of things hoped for” in a deep sense of being. We don’t base our faith on external evidence but on the recognition of the life energy that courses through our sense of Self, without regard for what’s happening externally.
In a world of perpetual change, there is a still place within us, that remains untouched, unstained, neither diminished nor aggrandized by outer events. Here there is no separation between the good we seek and our sense of being. Here we can restore our minds to sanity, find equanimity, and source practical wisdom for how we can best express our will in the world. Such a perspective may seem an unreasonable hope, not justified by externals, yet it is grounded in the eternal truth that is impervious to apparent losses and gains. Becoming familiar with this sense of Being creates a sanctuary providing ongoing refuge from the ups and downs of life, a place of peace that “surpasses human understanding.”
Namaste,
Rev. Larry
Comments