Expect Nothing

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

Most of us are aware of the book by John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage. It was a collection of vignettes concerning individual persons who acted boldly and bravely for the sake of the common good with a readiness to take risks away from an easier path. Now, I suggest, we are in need of a countercollection of “profiles in cowardice,” an account of individual persons who have refused to take risks or to act boldly for the sake of the common good. Just now our common good urgently needs such risk-taking agents to act in the midst of gun violence. What we witness, recurringly, are those who play it safe and give in to fear. Just now, with raging gun violence, there is need for courage; but what we see all around is cowardly fear.

From the sermon “Profiles in Cowardice” by Walter Brueggemann

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

After my last post about gun violence, I have been waiting to see what action our legislators would take before I commented again.  I’m still waiting, though it does look like there might be agreement on some limited measures.  At least it’s a start.  Time will tell if Senate Republicans have the courage to vote for the package.

But, to be honest, I don’t expect much to happen.  Time and again Republican leaders, paralyzed by fear of their “base,” have failed to act. I pray this time will be different and that no more children will be sacrificed on the altar of the gun lobby.

So, I am doing my best to be patient and  live in hope.  There is a saying attributed to the actor Darren Criss that I have found very helpful during this time of waiting:

Expect nothing.  Hope for everything.

Darren Criss

These words were directed at me in spiritual direction class because I tend to put high expectations on myself.  I was reminded that the work of spiritual direction is not about what I do, but what the Holy Spirit does.  In other words, don’t go into a session expecting life-changing things to happen; just hope that they will.

“Expect nothing,” while it certainly lowers the bar, is not a cynical statement.  It just puts things in a realistic context.

But, “expect nothing” does not mean to do nothing.  In the last several weeks I have become more actively engaged in deep contemplative prayer, what the great mystic, scholar, civil rights activist and preacher Howard Thurman referred to as “creative lassitude:”

The time will come when one may be quiet for a spell without drowsiness, but with a quality of creative lassitude that makes for renewal of mind and body.

Howard Thurman

While prayer and contemplation may not seem like active pursuits, they are the foundations of social action.  This is the lesson Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, was able to learn from Howard Thurman.  As strange as it may sound, contemplation leads to action.  Contemplation destroys the barriers that separate “one from the other;” with the barriers down there is no feeling of “other” at all, there is only unity with and love for all of creation.  And it is this love that compels the contemplative to take action for the common good.

While contemplation takes patience, contemplation and patience are not the same thing. Mere patience does not necessarily lead to action. Patience can be an excuse for inaction. As Thurman pointed out:

This is not to imply that patience is always a virtue, always desirable.  Sometimes it is merely an escape into inaction because of fear or cowardice or laziness.

Howard Thurman

These are fearful times, and the temptation is to give into our fear and retreat from public engagement.  That is a luxury which we do not have. God calls us into the world, into the messiness and uncertainty of life.  Above all, God calls us to be courageous.  This courage is not grounded in ourselves or our abilities, but in the God who is able to do more than we can hope or imagine.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

Grounded in prayer, I will continue to work for common sense gun legislation. And I will continue to “Expect nothing and hope for everything.”

St. Paul knew what it was to live with hope and with “hope deferred,” as the psalmist puts it.  And yet, he did not lose heart.  Shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, criticized, sentenced to death, he remained courageous when God was ready to do a new thing and extend the gospel beyond Jerusalem.  As we wait to see if our legislators have the courage to do a new thing, I offer this prayer from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)