home | what's new | other sites | contact | about

Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Hope

return to the 'Hope' main-page

The apostle Paul, Romans 8: “For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, suffer in sickness and death as they await this great event [of our glorification]… [though] we have the Holy Spirit … as a foretaste of future glory, [we] also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us - bodies that will never be sick again and will never die. We are saved by [this] trusting,” this hope for the future. The Living Bible translation 

As a young man studying the Bible 50+ years ago, I still recall being puzzled by the KJV rendering of Romans 8: “we are saved by hope.” This offended my fundamentalist sensibilities at the time: I thought that salvation was effected by something more substantial.

However, my view then issued as a product of multiple layers of misunderstanding. Some of the confusion could have been solved just by careful reading. Paul’s message is quite clear, especially if viewed in a modern translation, for example, J.B. Phillips.

Essentially, Paul is saying this:

Our time on planet Earth is like living in a war-zone and pretty much a disaster for all of us. There is oppression and suffering everywhere, and even nature itself cries out for relief. If we’re not careful to live closely with the Spirit, we can lose sight of the reality that a great rescue is coming, and for all creation. This realization should uplift and buoy us. We must not lose mindfulness of our wonderful future. Life will not always be incomplete and bereft. We are saved by this hope, this vision of better things to come.

Almost everything we do is linked to a desire to be happy and to feel good. It’s a compulsion. And if we lose this hope, at least someday, of finding happiness, then there'll be no impetus to continue living.

People often are willing to wait a long time, even a very long time – as the song goes, “a thousand summers” – if they’re confident that at least someday they will find love and happiness. But if this prospect is dashed, then great personal crisis ensues.

Father Benson recounts his missionary work in the Dark Realms. He describes the fate of those on the very lowest rungs of existence, those who have lost all hope.

These are the most wretched and degraded beings in the entire universe; now, part animal, part (hardly) human.

We walked closer to one of the sub-human forms that lay sprawled upon the rocks. What remnant of clothing it wore might easily have been dispensed with, since it consisted of nothing but the filthiest rags, which hung together in some inconceivable way, leaving visible great gaps of lifeless-looking flesh. The limbs were so thinly covered with skin that one fully expected to see bare bones showing forth. The hands were shaped like the talons of some bird of prey, with the finger nails so grown as to have become veritable claws. The face upon this monster was barely human, so distorted was it, and malformed. The eyes were small and penetrating, but the mouth was huge and repulsive, with thick protruding lips set upon a prognostic jaw, and scarcely concealing the veriest fangs of teeth. We gazed earnestly and long at this sorry wreck of what was once a human form...

Why would this happen when, as we’ve learned, it’s possible to leave the Dark Realms if one chooses to?

People stay, and sink lower and lower, because they want to. And why would they want to? There’s only one answer: They believe they will never find happiness, so why bother to live?

This sinking lower and lower is a choice. They could stop this degradation. They don’t want to stop it. They want to be rid of themselves. These, by their own hand and own estimation, are the utterly hopeless ones in the universe. They have given up all hope of ever finding happiness. Now, this is not true, but they believe it's true.

Editor’s note: In the “500 tape-recorded messages from the other side” we learned that the “insane 500” over there seek for ways to be rid of themselves. Ten different ways were discussed. And this last one here, morphing into part-animal in the Dark Realms, is the logical extension, the end of the line, of the materialism of meaninglessness afflicting the “insane 500.”

How do I know these things are true? How do I know the motivations of these most hapless creatures?

Elsewhere we’ve discussed how one’s spiritual path is not all Pollyanna smiles and light. At times, during one’s “long dark night of the soul,” one will be shown the depths of depravity. Lateece talked about this. This is not something one chooses to see. It just happens at times. In my own case, in the last 20 years, I have taken, or been given, an unwanted trip into the heart of darkness. There, we find the “madness maddened.” On one of these excursions, I saw myself, in utter hopelessness, in the Dark Realms, amidst the many other denizens of complete wretchedness. And so, how do I know what these sordid ones are thinking? How do I know that they have lost all hope of ever finding happiness? I know, because, I’ve been there, I know what it's like to be one of them.

Elenchus. This concept of losing all hope of happiness, leading to utmost despair, is hardly mere theory.

Kairissi. Yes, I think we know something about this.

E. When you wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even look at me, during all of high school, because you imagined that I had rejected you – I was too young to get what was happening at the time, but it’s clear to me now. You were often so sad and despondent during those years, I see it in many of your photographs from then. I now understand that you were living very close to those lowest levels of hell.

K. (softly) And you, too. When you lost me then, for many years after, you were an angry person, and you didn’t know why you were always so raging in your spirit.

E. We are saved by hope of happiness, and we didn't have it then.