“True hope—which means the hope that endures and sustains us—is based on God’s call and command. We are called to hope. It is a command: a command to resist death. It is a call: the call to divine life. Enduring hope is not something innate, something we possess from birth. Nor do we acquire it from experience. We have to learn it. We learn to hope if we obey the call. We learn to hope in the experiences that life brings us. We come to know its truth if we are forced to stand our ground against despair. We come to know its power when we realize that it keeps us alive in the midst of death.  –(Experiences of God).

I was struck by the line: “We learn to hope in the experiences that life brings us.” I’ve been thinking about the experiences in my life that have taught me hope, when have I obeyed the call and stood my ground against despair.

The first event occurred when I felt called to go to seminary in my mid-20s. I applied to a couple of seminaries and was accepted; however, I didn’t have the money to go to school. I planned to work part-time while studying, but that wouldn’t cover everything. One of the seminaries had a full-tuition scholarship. I applied for it and was told I was third in line for the two scholarships they offered. Trying to be faithful to the call, I chose to attend that seminary. A few months before the school year began, I got the word that one of the scholarship recipients decided not to enroll. So I received a scholarship for the first year. I realize this experience is more one of hope in the common way we use the term—hoping for something that we have power to work out ourselves.

The hope of which Moltmann writes is of another order. This hope is in something beyond our power. I have had an experience that taught me this type of hope as well. In my early 30s I suffered a bout of depression. Depression can rob a person of hope. I was fortunate to have people around me that held out hope for me. One person told me: “I know you can’t believe this right now, but I want you to know that you can get through this. I’ll hold that for you until you can hold it for yourself.” By the grace of God, and the help of others, I did get through it. That experience taught me that with help I can “stand my ground against despair.” When I am tempted to despair when a situation seems hopeless, I remember this experience. I have to learn again and again to hope.

It is encouraging to know that we can learn to hope. It is easy to despair and give up hope today when we look at the world and national situation. I continually remind myself that what I hear or read in the news is not the full story. People of good will are at work in the world. I can be one of those people. God is at work in the world. As long as that is true, there is hope wherever there are people who are obeying the call to love, forgive and stand firm for justice. That is what we see in the story of the incarnation. Mary was obedient in consenting to Jesus’ birth. She was obedient too in the face of despair standing at the foot of the cross. This Advent and in the coming year let us pray to be willing and obedient to God’s call that we may know the power of hope.

How have you learned hope?

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James [not his real name] and I stood outside talking in low voices. The autumn air was cool, but our discussion was getting heated. We had just come out of a packed lecture hall where 3 speakers offered their thoughts on Calling in Today’s World: Multi-faith Perspectives.

The diverse panel included Amy Eilberg, the first woman ordained a rabbi in Judaism’s Conservative Movement, and a teacher of inter-religious and intra-Jewish dialogue; Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion, philosophy and Asian studies at St. Olaf College and a specialist in Hindu tradition and interreligious dialogue; and, Mark Unno, associate professor and religious studies advisor at the University of Oregon, a practitioner and teacher of Buddhism. Although there were parallels in the Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, I was surprised to learn from these interreligious scholars just how unique a sense of personal calling and guidance were to the Christian tradition.

James, a fellow theology graduate student, and I had only recently shared our own calling stories with each other. As we walked out of the lecture hall, I asked for his thoughts. He looked frustrated. “I wish folks would talk honestly about what happens when a calling ends. What happens when a decision that you discerned deeply about, wrestled with, fought over, prayed through—changes or ends completely? Do we just chalk that up to a mistake, a failure to hear one’s true calling? How does anyone keep listening?”

The question came from his own life, but it could just as easily have come from mine too. James had been a monastic seminarian but after extensive soul-searching, he had left his community and was now on a more independent path toward a PhD. His calling had shifted.

I had to admit, so had mine over the years. I was once a vocationally fulfilled lawyer, a public defender in New York. I had been doing “God’s work” with the poor and marginalized for years. And yet, after a year-long sabbatical, I discerned the end of the legal work which had formed me and which I’d come to love. When I came to Holy Wisdom Monastery, I sensed a different calling, a different possibility for my life and new way of living out a profession.

Was the whole law-thing a mistake then?  Had I heard wrong? Would this monastic calling last, or would it too yield in time and change?

It occurred to me that James was right. We don’t often talk honestly about the complexity of calling. The picture of vocation (particularly in Christian circles) can look uni-directional. But it’s rarely a direct trajectory for most people. Perhaps it would help if we talked more openly about the evolution of a vocation. There are often twists and turns, but each bend in the track also contributes to who we become, how we love, the risks we’re willing to take.

One has only to think of one’s own romantic history to know that despite a sense of deep calling and mutual love, sometimes a very significant relationship ends. We discern a different path; we’re forced to move on. One’s sense of calling in the world can and does shift in response to the circumstances of our lives and the opportunities available to us.

Perhaps it would help if we acknowledged the pain and disorientation that often accompanies the pursuit of a calling. It isn’t always choirs of angels and rose petals, sometimes it includes accepting the past (with all its trial and supposed error) in order to open up to the quiet possibility of something new and fulfilling.

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Read other blog posts from Sister Rosy in her series, Letters home.

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