Many of you will be familiar with the H.O.P.E. acrostic Hold On Pain Ends, particularly those in the clinical space. This, now ‘catch phrase’ yet vital psycho-social component is a little more intricate and robust than mere subjective emotional perceptions.
It is important to understand that hope is not merely the positive expectation of good, but also the reasonable grounds for it. It's the latter part of this definition that is most often overlooked. I know many people, I am not one of them, who appear 'naturally resilient', you know the people who are always upbeat, positive and genuinely have few strong negative emotional shifts, even under duress. When I have asked these people to define their hope, the answer is almost always a variation of a happy or confident emotion/feeling. Of course, if that 'emotion' or 'feeling' evaporates so it appears does the existential anchor they are tethered to.
When I press a little harder and ask for an external measure of hope/resilience, the information often dries up. Sometimes it's family or another relationship, but the 'reasonable grounds' seems a difficult one to articulate, particularly in our First world culture that has informed us incessantly since the advent of post-modernity that; YOU have the power within – YOU are all you need – YOU can do it! Of course, there is some small truth in all these statements, but YOU are not just the sum-total of your self-perceived and self-determined internal mechanisms, are you?
You see, it’s important to remember that everyone on this planet starts life as a wheelbarrow - everyone.
A wheelbarrow is an empty powerless vehicle that is filled by someone else and pushed by someone or something else. As human beings, at least for the first 10-13 years of our lives, that is exactly our lot. Infact we were created that way in some respects. We were supposed to have best practice invested in us by people who care that we become the best that our Designer determined us to be.
Now, what is being 'put in' and who is 'pushing' you at this stage you have next to no control over, and at these most formative stages, it is vital that good, right and true is invested according to that best practice, not just 'good, right and true' according to someone’s personal preference. (I.e. The Nazi's internal moral/intellectual/values compass was totally 'fine' with exterminating millions of people because according to their compass of 'good, right and true', they were just 'taking out the cultural trash’, to make THEIR version of society 'better'!) I digress!
So who gets to determine 'best practice'? What is that predicated upon and which model, mode or mechanism will truly usher in 'good, right and true'? That's perhaps a conversation or contemplation for another day?
Anyway, for hope to be fully formed it must have, at least some indication, of what is good and the grounds that foster that ‘good’?
It appears from the ever-growing body of evidence that the more we look ‘into ourselves’ for the ultimate hope of what is good, the more dysfunctional, corrupt and utterly frowzy we become as a culture or society – a dishevelled society that only adds greater weight to the pain scales, which ironically in turn, only longs for a greater ‘hope’ that this mounting pain will end, however, a burden this frail hope cannot sustain.
I’ve taken the liberty of developing a few more H.O.P.E. acrostics that I encourage you to add too. However, I want to point to what to many is the painfully obvious. There really is ONLY One Ultimate Hope for this failing humanity - this Hope has a Name and it is Jesus The Christ.
Hold On Person Enhancing
Hold On Process Expiring
Hold On Pride Evaporating
Hold Out Potential Emerging
Helping Our Pain Educate
Heaven Overwhelms Personal Environments
Heaven Overturns Problem Eventualities
Hold On Perseverance Engaged
Helping Our Praise Erupt
S.W. Varcoe