The Courage to Hope

An Open Call for the Courage to Hope

An essay by Carole A. MacNeil, PhD

June 15, 2020

In so-called normal times, I partner with youth and communities throughout Africa and the Middle East on community development and peace-building initiatives, working in places where life can be particularly challenging— refugee camps, conflict-affected zones, or informal settlements. In the midst of poverty, violence, disease, marginalization, and innumerable other adversities, still there is hope among these youth. It inspires me when I discover this hope, and it humbles me when I can play a small part of unleashing its power in partnership with a community.

Like so many, my work (and my field of international development) has changed dramatically in recent months. Covid-19’s unbidden re-arrangement of my space and time, though, has created an opportunity for reflection on what young people and their communities have taught me about hope, at a time when I and my fellow citizens desperately need to find more of it. I’ve learned about hope from the group of young leaders in the informal settlements (or “slums” as locals call them) in Nairobi who created an organization for clearing the garbage out of their neighborhood, because they hoped for a safer, cleaner place to grow up. I’ve learned about hope from the group of Syrian teenage girls, re-settled as refugees in Turkey, who had escaped brutal civil war with almost no possessions, but were choosing hope as they learned to navigate a new life in a sometimes-unwelcoming new community. And I’ve learned about hope from refugee youth on the Kenya-Somalia border who began social justice projects within their refugee camps because they hoped for a stronger, safer, more cohesive community even while living a liminal existence.

One thing I’ve come to understand about hope is this: as life becomes more challenging, so does hope. As our understanding grows of the complexity of the issues we face, so does the pressure to abandon hope. When the demands of hope get too tiring—whether that be wearing a mask or postponing our social activities in the hope of saving lives, or whether that be standing up and speaking up peacefully but firmly in the hope of reaffirming the dignity of all lives—it is too easy to let hope slip through our fingers. The pressure to replace hope with something more destructive can be overwhelming. Those who are hope-filled are often called “naïve” or “unrealistic” as if they have no grasp on reality. Somehow our tired world mistakes cynicism for sophistication, pessimism for level-headedness. But hope isn’t naïve at all, or weak, or unsophisticated. Just the opposite, in fact: Hope is strong, sometimes complicated, and always courageous.

Hope is a discipline. Like any other discipline—exercise or healthy eating, for instance—we don't get there in one try. It is a muscle we build, by strengthening it a little at a time. We maintain it by nurturing it. We practice it. We work at it to keep it alive and strong, and to keep our hearts strong enough to give it a proper home. Hope demands strength from somewhere deep in our souls.

Hope takes courage, too. It can put us through the wringer. When hope has been crushed, it takes courage to summon it again, to persevere, and to resist the descent into cynicism, or even despair. Hope can be so easily eroded by those who try to remind us why cynicism is more rational, those naysayers who get in the way of the work of hope. But cynicism is just a cheap and easy alternative when one cannot find the strength, courage and creativity required to face the immense challenges confronting us. Cynicism is a mask for despair, a fashionable cloak to somehow make our despair appear more chic and sophisticated. It is snake oil in a bottle, but rather than promising a cure for what ails us, cynicism promises only to relieve us from our human responsibility to make the world a better place, in whatever ways large or small we are called to do so.

Hope, on the other hand, makes demands of us. While optimism may help us see the “bright side” in an unpleasant situation, hope asks us to wrestle with the darkness of hard times, eyes wide open, vision clear and focused, and gaze set firmly on a brighter alternative. Hope insists that we hold out for a better version of our world, a better version of each other, and especially, a better version of ourselves. Hope then requires us to persevere in bringing that vision to reality. I can’t just sit and wait, simply hoping that human and civil rights will be honored, that social justice will prevail, or that a pandemic and all its associated crises will “miraculously” disappear. That is not a sincere or courageous answer to the call of hope. Hope is not a way out, but a way in. It may be a way into action; it may be a way into a new understanding and determination; it may be a way into a different way of loving and caring for others. True hope fuels action, and hope-inspired action, in turn, fuels even more hope in a virtuous cycle that the soul of our society is calling for with increasing volume. Hope can keep us human in the face of inhuman policies, practices, and systems. Hope can help us find our way when confronted with leaders who have lost theirs.

And while hope makes great demands of us, it is not unreasonable; it gives us plenty of help along the way. Hope gives us moments of grace, in which we see signs that our reasons to hope are not in vain. It gives us moments of ease, in which we feel that the work might not be quite so impossible after all. And it gives us moments of love, in which we know that the work of hope is supported by others who hope alongside us. When the police officer kneels with protesters, when community members find the courage to speak—and hear—difficult truths, when we focus attention and energy on what happens after the march to begin repairing the wrongs that happened long before the march…Those are moments when we see the work of hope getting done.

That work of hope is terribly, wonderfully important—now more than ever—for us as individuals and us as a collective. What shall we become if we don’t dare hope for it? Where will we end up if we don’t dare hope for a destination that is worth hoping for? And how can we make our way if we don’t dare strive for a hope-filled journey together that keeps that worthy destination firmly fixed before us? It is a time for hope. More than that, it is a time for unabashed, unapologetic, and unwavering hope. Our unfulfilled promise as a thriving, peaceful, and just democracy is crying out for it; our souls as citizens may well depend on it.