Small Group Ministry, December 2011 ~ Hope

Quotes for Reflection

It is essential to condemn what must be condemned, but swiftly and firmly. On the other hand, one should praise at length what still deserves to be praised. After all, that is why I am an artist, because even the work that negates still affirms something and does homage to the wretched and magnificent life that is ours.
~ Albert Camus, from Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

When giving thanks comes hard for you,
And things are grim,
And hope runs thin,
Recall:
Despair’s a door to pass on through,
And not a home for living in.
~ Robert Mabry Doss

People say, what is the sense of our small effort.

They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.

A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that.

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless.

There’s too much work to do.
~ Dorothy Day, #560

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.
~ Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Hope drifts up
Covering my soul
Such comfort.
~ D. Schmid, The Mountain Institute 2008

A fiery orange ball
The sun rises again today
My heart begins to warm
~ C. Holt, The Mountain Institute 2008

Spiritual Exercise: Cultivating Hope
This month, choose something in your life that you are struggling to be hopeful about and think about what you could to that might begin to make a change. If it’s physical health, try making small dietary or exercise changes. If you are over tired, begin planning ways to get a little more sleep. If your home or work spaces are cluttered, begin to address them bit by bit to see if you can make a difference. If you have a relationship that is unsatisfying, think about what needs to change and how you might be able to achieve an improvement. Choose a social justice issue about which you feel discouraged. What can you do, no matter how small, to help you engage with this issue and be part of the solution? If there is something you really want to do, but haven’t been able to, what can you do to become more hopeful about the situation?

Session Plan

Chalice Lighting
Today, may our time together renew our hope.
May the stories we share refresh our courage
May the songs we sing lift our spirits.
May the words we speak invigorate us.
May the touch of hands, the sound laughter, and the sight of faces familiar restore us in faith.
~ Calvin O. Dame

Check In
Share briefly what’s been on your mind lately or your highs and lows since we last met.

Reading
Look well to the growing edge.
All around us worlds are dying
and new worlds are being born;
all around us life is dying and life is being born.
The fruit ripens on the tree,
the roots are silently at work
in the darkness of the earth
against a time when there shall be new leaves,
fresh blossoms, green fruit.
Such is the growing edge.
It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung,
the one more thing to try when all else has failed,
the upward reach of life
when weariness closes in upon all endeavor.
This is the basis of hope in moments of despair,
the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint
and men and women have lost their reason,
the source of confidence when worlds crash
and dreams whiten into ash.
Such is the growing edge incarnate.
Look well to the growing edge.
~ Howard Thurman

Sitting in Silence

Sharing/Deep Listening
Please share your thoughts on the preparation for this session.

1. Did you do the spiritual exercise? Were you able to increase your hopefulness in an area of your life?

2. Can you remember a time in your life when you felt that an issue or situation was hopeless but you kept going anyway? How did you maintain hope in a hopeless situation?

3. Have you ever encouraged someone who was without hope? How were you able to help? What did you learn from this experience?

4. Think about important issues about which you are currently concerned or have been discouraged. Has there been progress has been made on those issues in the past 10 or 20 years that could give you reason to hope?

5. Has Unitarian Universalism affected your experience of hope?

Reflection
This is a time to respond briefly to something another person said or to relate additional thoughts that may have occurred as others shared.

Singing
There is more hope somewhere.
There is more hope somewhere.
I’m going to keep on ‘til I find it.
There is more hope somewhere.
~ #95, Singing the Living Tradition

Extinguishing the Chalice
And now may we go forth as partners and friends,
reunited to seek the truth in freedom,
to do good to our fellow human beings,
and to be at peace with ourselves --

May we take with us the certainty of faith,
the knowledge of love
and the vision of hope.
Amen.
~ Harold Babcock
(The 1997 UUMA Worship Materials Collection)

Supplemental Readings

Becoming a Hope-filled Optimist by Beverly M. Breakey
This article is excerpted from the book:
Choose Life! Living Consciously in an Unconscious World

Nobody wants to feel hopeless. There are some who attach themselves to it because they know nothing else. They are the Eyores of life, behaving like the fabled donkey in the Winnie the Pooh series. Even people who are suicidal don't want death as much as they want the pain to stop. Their pain is that of hopelessness, for they see no way to choose life. We all have times when we need to hear, "Lift up your eyes and look outward from this place." (Book of Genesis, Chp. 13, V.14)

Being hopeful is a natural state. Our body, mind, spirit and emotions will always seek ways to reclaim it. Healing from hopelessness is the gift of getting our futures back. We can learn how to adjust our present perspective and, in so doing, we gift others as well.

Basic Beliefs
There are three basic beliefs that exude hope. They tell us that we are lovable, good, and sufficient. We begin learning them in our earliest experiences, and they direct our behavior throughout our lives. They are the cornerstones of choosing life.
Humans need love. It is in the giving and receiving of love that we choose life. Participating in this fundamental exchange lies in our ability to trust others. This is where hope enters.

Too often, we limit our trust because of past betrayal. Hope is a special quality that lifts us from this pit of despair. Hope doesn't depend on the past. In fact, it requires that we disregard all previous experience, good and bad. When we hope for that which we do not have, we anticipate that something good will happen. It allows us to wait patiently and confidently. While we wait, we can open our hearts to give and receive the love that we need.

Hope-filled people know that they are good most of the time. They direct their intention toward being good citizens, good children, good parents, and good in any other roles they adopt. What does it mean to be good? Goodness includes patience, tolerance, accountability, integrity, kindness, and honesty. It looks beyond the self to the greatest good of all. It is able to set aside gratification in the present in order to strive toward something better. It is grounded in the confidence that good prevails.
To know that you are enough, blemishes and all, fills you with hope.

You have special gifts, and if you don't know what they are, you need to discover them. Each one of us is an expert in something. It may be swatting flies or climbing mountains. Refrain from comparing your expertise to that of another. Accept that you are sufficient right now. It is from a point of acceptance that you can choose to be more. Say to yourself, "I am good. I am lovable. I am sufficient, and from this day onward I can be even more if I so choose. I am a gift to the world."

The Body Wants to Help
If you bend forward in a crouched position with your head near the floor, and say, "I feel hopeful," chances are, you won't sound hopeful at all. If you sit up straight, push your shoulders back, open your chest, look up and say, "I'm hopeless," nobody will believe it. Our words may say one thing while our body says another. We can use our body to help us restore hopeful feelings.

Posture is just one way the body helps us shift our attitude. When we expand the chest, we expand our lungs. By taking a full cleansing breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth, we automatically release tension. If the chest muscles are contracted, we have too little oxygen coming into the lungs and too little carbon dioxide going out. Shallow breathing and holding the breath are unconscious acts. They are a response to hopelessness. It is as if we fear opening up to anything, even the positive. As a result, we collapse into ourselves, becoming victims of our posture. Conscious awareness allows us to reshape our bodies through stretching and breathing deeply.

Vigorous physical exercise of a pleasing nature helps to restore hopefulness. The body's natural hormones go into production when we run, walk, dance, bounce on a trampoline, or ride a bicycle. Twenty minutes of aerobic exercise, done six days a week, provides enough good-feeling hormones for most of us. The body does want to help. When we listen to its responses, it guides us. A healthy amount of physical exercise is as good as a tune up. In some ways, people's bodies are like cars. If they sit in the driveway they get stiff and rusty. If you drive them only in high gear they wear out. When we care for them and use them well, they last for a very long time.

We are not designed for continuous work. Humans are cyclical creatures. In each twenty-four hours there needs to be a rhythm of activity and rest. Sedentary jobs must be balanced with physical action. Work must be balanced with play, and activity with rest. It is the balance that allows us to sleep secure in the knowing that this day, we have chosen life. Tomorrow forecasts hope.

The Mind Wants to Help
Our thoughts are powerful messengers. We can program our minds to tell us hope-filled words. Saying them aloud makes them even more believable.

Hope-filled thoughts should be positive, personal, and spoken in the present tense. Hope begins now, not later. "I am confident that the person I will marry is coming toward me now."

Hope is lively, not fearful and guarded. It grants us freedom from the shackles of doubt. Hope-filled thoughts should reflect excitement, enthusiasm, and a positive attitude. "I am delighted by the notion that the love of my life is preparing to meet me now. I can feel it and I am confident that all my preparation is being rewarded."

When there seems to be a traffic jam inside of our minds, we can use relaxation and centering techniques to achieve quiet presence and restore hope. The cleansing breath is one such practice, a good stretch is another. Taking a full body shake is wonderful (dogs do it all the time), and so is letting out a loud sigh. Go ahead. Try one of these now.

There are many forms of meditation. If you are a physically active person, choose a moving meditation such as Hatha Yoga, or T'ai Chi. Seated meditation is suited to people who enjoy physical stillness. Self-distraction can be achieved with anything that rests the intellect such as a good book, a crossword puzzle, creative writing or a computer game.

The mind readily opens to suggestions once you teach it to be still. It doesn't need to be empty, just uncluttered.

The Emotions Want to Help
When feelings and emotions are undermining hopefulness, we have to pay attention to them. Sometimes we just need to give them an opportunity to vent. If you are feeling sad but unable to have a good cry, rent a sad movie. If you are angry, take a big breath and open your mouth as wide as you can. Then, bend forward and let out a low growl. You will be amazed by the sound of rage releasing from your body.

Emotions can also release through outlets of creative expression. If you play a musical instrument, choose a selection that matches your mood and play it as passionately as you can. Then change to something lighter and more hopeful.

Working with art materials heals emotional conflict. You don't have to be good at any of it. Just splash powdered tempera paint all over a large piece of newspaper. Dip a brush in water and swirl it around. You might try ready-to-use finger-paints. Smear them on waxed paper till your heart is content. Squeezing and releasing two blobs of clay works wonders. If you like to cut and paste, gather up last month's magazines and make a collage. You will be surprised at how your choices tell a story. Any time you take time to play artist, you will heap a bounty of emotional healing on your soul. Try it. This is really choosing life.

Cultivating Hope
Exerpted from an article called Cultivating Hope and Managing Despair by John Sharry

It is in the deepest despair that is born the greatest hope ~ Miguel de Unamuno

…The famous psychologist Kubler Ross [2] proposed a five-stage model of how an individual responds to bereavement or pending loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. Once denial is passed, a person may experience great anger at their loss, which is often accompanied by seeking to apportion blame and even seek retribution. This can be followed by bargaining or engaging in wishful thinking or unhelpful strategies to mitigate the loss and then by depression and grief as the impact of the loss finally comes to bear. Kubler Ross argues that once this grief work is done, the person can reach some level of acceptance and integration…
While the Kubler-Ross model provides a useful understanding of the stages of dealing with loss, critics often say that it misses a final step of hopeful and constructive action. Many people who experience loss move beyond acceptance, try to make meaning out of their experience, and channel their energy into constructive action. Many people who have lost a loved one to an illness will put their efforts into supporting others with the same illness, or dedicate themselves to educating others so they can avoid the loss they experienced. In addition, many people report that despite the pain and suffering, the experience of a trauma in the long term can actually have some benefits and help them reorient their life for the better...They move beyond acceptance of the facts and commit themselves to constructive action, whether in terms of educating others or building sustainable communities. Many report their life as being better, more integrated and even more hopeful once they became aware of the coming crises.

A second criticism of the five-stage grief model is that it is too simple and linear and that, in fact, people dealing with the prospect of a serious loss oscillate between positive and negative emotions. At times people can be in denial and at other times feel acceptance; they can alternate between anger and despair at their predicament and other times feel hope about what will come to pass. The family therapist Carmel Flaskis [3] talks about the co-existence of hope and hopelessness in working with people dealing with trauma and loss. People can move from great sadness, pain, despair and injustice to, at other times, great hope, courage, forgiveness and resilience. The key is to achieve some sort of balance between the two and to learn to cultivate hope in the face of despair. Helping people cope with trauma is about helping them express, understand and manage their despair, as well as helping them cultivate hope and new meaning beyond the original experience. Good therapeutic work is characterized by compassion (accepting the person whatever feelings they have and wherever they are on the grief process) reflection (highlighting to the person that they have choices in how they respond to the trauma they are affecting them) and empowerment (helping the person channel their energy into constructive courses of action)…
The full text of the article can be found at:
http://fleeingvesuvius.org/index.php/2011/06/08/cultivating-hope-and-managing-despair/

Cultivating Hope…
Excerpts from a speech by M. Cathleen Kaveny, professor of law and of theology at the University of Notre Dame, given in Baltimore October 21, 2005. She spoke at the inauguration of Loyola College in Maryland's new president, Jesuit Father Brian Linnane.
…What is hope? According to Thomas Aquinas, hope takes as its object "a future good, difficult but possible to obtain."(1) Fundamentally, then, hope is a way of relating to the future, a way of moving beyond and transcending the limitations, the darkness, the injustice of the present day. But it is a particular way of doing so.

First, hope is not to be equated with a sunny, cockeyed optimism. Hope does not pertain to easy or certain things, no matter how good they may seem and how much we miss them right now. Hope is tough: Hope knows there are difficulties and realizes what it will cost to deal with them.

Second, precisely because hope deals with difficulties, it requires hard work. The process of pursuing the object of hope is arduous. Hope demands engagement, not just bare acquiescence. And in fact, hope enables action in difficult times. We do not embark upon a difficult course of action unless we have the hope that we will succeed.

Third, hope is not solitary. The fulfillment of my hope frequently requires activity or assistance from others. Think of those trapped by Hurricane Katrina, hoping for safety, depending for safety upon the rescuers coming in time. Furthermore, I can hope for the good of someone else - provided, according to Thomas, that I am united to them in love and so will their good as my own.(2) By expanding our hearts in love, we also expand the scope for our hope.

Fourth, while the object hoped for has to be in the future, not the past or the present, it doesn't have to be achieved at any specified or certain date...
The best recent work on hope… is a book written by a Jesuit, William F. Lynch, and titled Images of Hope.(12) In a nutshell Lynch argues that cultivating hope requires two characteristics: It requires imagination, and it requires solidarity.

Lynch gives the following example: "A man is in trouble. There is a way out. What is it? He does not yield. He imagines and hypothesizes. He waits. He continues to imagine and hypothesize."(13)

In Lynch's view, imagination is the key to sustaining hope in difficult times. It is not a flight of fancy, a spurt of wistful thinking or a Walter Mitty daydream. It is practical, can-do creativity in the face of adversity. The major threat to hope, according to Lynch, comes from the individual's failure of imagination. "[W]hat happens in despair is that the private imagination, of which we are so enamored, reaches the point of the end of inward resource and must put on the imagination of another if it is to find a way out."(14)

Cultivating hope has always required us to provide one another with practical assistance in our respective distress - the fruits of our hearts and hands. But we learn from Lynch that it also requires providing one another with the fruits of our hearts and minds - the fruits of our imagination. Practical imagination is a collective project, a fundamental act of human solidarity.
(1)Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 17, art. 1 (emphasis mine).
(2)Ibid., II-II, q. 17, art. 2.
(12)William F. Lynch, Images of Hope: Imagination as Healer of the Hopeless (University of Notre Dame Press, 1965).
(13)Ibid., p. 23.
(14)Ibid.
The full text of the speech can be found at:
http://www.nd.edu/~lumen/2005_11/CultivatingHopeinTroubledTimes.shtml