Ubuntu Practice # 7. Choose Hope Over Optimism.

I love to write. This fact is interesting because I did not learn to read or write until after the third grade. To the second grade me reading and writing was a mystery. I believed that this mystery had simply been revealed to others, and not yet to me. But, I had hope that one day it would be. Until then I would memorize books and sounds according to shape and I would lay low, sitting in the back row and never ever raising my hand. 

Those around me that could easily read were magic! I felt a sense of awe and envy at the pleasure they took in taking up space in the bean bag section of the classroom, happily sorting through the choices of reading materials and then turning pages with delight. The act of reading was tantalizing, a club that I had not yet been invited into. While I never thought to ask for help, what kept me engaged was a sense of hope that one day it would all make sense, that I too would understand the mystery.

To make a long story short, it turns out reading isn’t a mystery. It turns out that I am dyslexic. After days of testing, following the diagnosis, I was removed from my current school and placed in a school that could teach me to unlock the magic of reading. And the teachers did just that. Within two years I could read! 

The first full book I read was a  biography of Abraham Lincoln, followed by The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton. I don’t think I understood the book by Merton, but I didn’t care, I was a member of the club, and I understood the mystery, and hope had gotten me there. So, these days I write, not because I have to, but because I can. I write to keep that sustaining hope alive. 

Ernest Hemingway says that to begin a piece of writing one must begin by writing the most true sentence one can write. By writing the one truest sentence the rest of the story will unfold. And he said that while the reader may choose to read it as fiction, there is always a chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact. 
For the first time in almost fifteen years this Holy Week I will not preach a single sermon. But I will write. And the truest sentence I can write today is this, “My motivation comes out of love now, not out of anger, not out of hate.” That is a quote from the most recently detained student from a university for sparking protests that apparently risk the safety of national security.

“My motivation comes out of love now, not out of anger, not out of hate.”

The story of Holy Week is one of mystery and the resulting resurrection is a mystery. As Jesus walked into a sea of judgement and as he was condemned to death for risking the national security of the Roman Empire Jesus’s motivation came from love, not anger or hate, or fear, but love. 

I don’t know if the story of Holy Week is true, but it does throw some light on what has been written as fact. And I know that the truest sentence I can write today is this: I too want to be motivated by love. Because I have hope, not that everything will turn out ok, but that when we are motivated by love, the mystery will be revealed.