Why Hope Feels Boring Today—and Why Christianity Says It Isn’t
Cameron (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:05)
And I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse. In this episode, Cameron and I parse out what a hard versus a soft virtue is, particularly around the concept of hope, how it's not really a naive concept, but it has a very practical outworking in the way in which we think about being responsible citizens and responsible Christians and living in a real world and meaningfully engaging it. You'll want to sit down and think about this one, I think, but it has some really helpful clarifying subcomponents to the conversation.
If you enjoy this kind of content, know it's little bit wordy, but you're a little bit nerdy, so you stick with it. You can like what we're doing. You can share the content. can subscribe to the content. And if you want to support us financially, you can do so by visiting www.toltogether.com.
Cameron (00:07)
So I've been thinking about hope lately again, but here's the thing. So there's a show that's pretty popular on Netflix right now. It's called The Beast in Me, not necessarily recommending it, but there's an exchange in that show that's really interesting. So one of the characters, she's a writer and she's stuck on the book that she's working on. It's a book on Supreme Court justices, on the friendship between the Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Nathan (00:10)
again.
Cameron (00:35)
And of course, this is supposed to be these two, if you didn't know, were close friends, vacation together, yada yada, but also ideologically opposed. Scalia was a conservative and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a progressive and yet they were friends. it's really moving, isn't it? It's very touching. So that's, know, it's about their friendship and the hope, the beacon of hope that that friendship offers for us to all live with our deep differences. Shoo, I'm rolling my eyes as I say it. Sheesh. Anyway.
One of the characters has that same response and looks at her and goes, ⁓ that's boring. No wonder you're stuck. People don't want hope. They want gossip and carnage. And I found myself in total agreement with him. So the fact that America, that we love gossip and carnage, I don't really have to make that case. In 2020,
We weren't watching documentaries on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. We were watching Tiger King. I mean, this country absolutely salivates over true crime and the more gruesome and sadistic, the better. All right, I'm sorry. you know, you know the podcasts you listen to. You know what you look at and what you read. David Fincher, the filmmaker, once said that his kind of guiding assumption when he makes a movie is that Americans are perverts.
So that's like it or not, that's a portrait of our nation.
Nathan (02:03)
Well, actually Cameron, I we were reflecting on this we were told this at the outset there was a marketing firm in New York that we had some contact with through some previous relationships who Said that the thinking out loud podcast or what they said we really like what you're doing here But it'll never scale because you need fear and anger in order to grow a digital platform in the 21st century And you guys don't have that so good project, but it'll it'll never go anywhere. So we're like, yeah, we know but
Cameron (02:12)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (02:32)
We're going to do it because we think it's the right thing, not because we think it's mathematically advantageous.
Cameron (02:37)
Yes.
So I think there's, there's obviously some truth in that, but I think a statement like that is predicated on a false understanding of hope. So the cultural way we think of things is it's really important to talk about that sometimes. I don't even want to use the word definition because definition sounds too formal. How we see things in cultural terms is very much a kind of default setting. It's pre-theoretical. It just seems to be the way things are. And so.
The way we see hope culturally is actually, I think, quite boring and quite sentimental. So in cultural terms, I think we would say that hope is really, we would see hope as somebody who has a good attitude in dark times, who makes the best of things, even when things look dark and continues forward and is an inspiration to all of us. That's not really, now that might be.
one way of looking at hope, but actually that's not a biblical understanding of hope at all. If we look at hope biblically or we look at the Christian vision of hope, it actually looks more like a harder virtue. It's tougher, it's scarier, it's more muscular. No, I will not stop. I'm done. All right, done.
Nathan (03:48)
Okay, stop, back up, halt, halt, halt, halt, stop, stop! Cease this madness.
Okay, so here's the thing. I think you're right, but we're skipping through some things pretty quickly here. First of all, I think most people think of hope as an emotion.
Which you're talking about it as a virtue then you made a distinction between you said it's a hard virtue I'm not even sure if most of us have a ⁓ working Category in our mind of virtue rather than emotion much less a distinction between hard and soft virtue So can you bring us along with you here?
Cameron (04:16)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Yeah, sure. Let's, let's deal with the emotion piece first. So I'm trying to say this in practical terms, but there is a little bit of philosophical thinking that has to come into play here because many of us discount emotions from thought. We're in the habit of doing that. tend to separate because, so we would say, yeah, mean, what we would say
Nathan (04:48)
Mm-hmm.
We put it in a pre-thought category, that it's a subconscious
posture.
Cameron (04:55)
Yeah, well, we would say, use your rational faculties and your rational faculties, ideally speaking, should be in the lead and your emotions shouldn't be in the lead or, you know, we draw a distinction between those two. I don't think you can make that fine of a distinction between the emotions and rational thought. Emotions are part of good thinking. And I'm just going to make the case really fast here.
You can actually, love for you. think you have a lot to add here, Nathan as well. There is a philosophical name for this, this line of thinking it's called cognitive cognitivism. And for various obvious, very obvious reasons, I'm not going to use that word anymore. It's a pretty ugly word and it's going to throw people, but they have actually, they've, they've done somebody for instance, who lacks the ability to properly empathize or who
whose emotions are very, very subdued, we see that as a mental deficiency. So in other words, we don't look at somebody who tends toward what we would call sociopathic tendencies or something along those lines, seated somewhere on that spectrum. We don't say, wow, this person is really exemplary. They're purely rational. They're like Mr. Spock, this is a good thing.
Nathan (06:02)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (06:21)
No, we recognize it as a, as, as a defect and it cloud actually clouding. But it also, yeah, no, they don't, but it, we would say that if you have a total lack of emotion and empathy, that sort of thing, it's actually clouding your judgment. If you think purely in clinically rational terms, that actually is not a good thing. I'll pause there for a second.
Nathan (06:25)
Well, because people don't really live like that.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's
interesting. was digging around flipping back through Nicomachean ethics looking at some of the stuff Aristotle said about virtue formation. And he goes into this a little bit on the rational and the non-rational part of the soul. So here's some PTSD from all of you from 20 years ago who had some philosophy. in his... Basically, when he starts discussing the rational and the irrational parts of the soul, he has a line in there that jumped out to me that I didn't remember. He's like...
Cameron (06:51)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (07:11)
Functionally, it doesn't make a difference how you divide this out You can't really make that distinction So so when you're pointing out what you're saying, we've known this for I mean, it's been written for the last 2400 years that it doesn't really do anything valuable for us to be able to We have to know that they're there But where you how to make those distinctions between the rational and irrational or maybe a more emotive or cognitive elements of our decision-making
It's just nobody's come up with a ⁓ valuable way other than to say if you're missing one of them, there's a problem to parse that out. So we kind of do have to take it as a whole unit.
Cameron (07:49)
Absolutely. Yeah. You can't draw that. just, you just can't strictly separate like that. Can emotion cloud your judgment? Yeah, of course. But emotion also can aid you in your judgment. So if you are confronted with some scene of injustice or you see some need in your community, compassion can actually aid you in your cognitive process. It can aid you in your thought about it. All right. So we've said enough now.
Nathan (08:14)
Well, and
your cognitive thinking can pre... can form you in a way that your emotions are safer. So I think that I think there's an ontological priority here. And then I mean, this is a challenge of raising children is that sometimes you do have to tell them that their emotions... you can't tell somebody that their emotions aren't real, but you can tell them that the emotions they're feeling do not accurately... this person said this to me and it insulted me because it's like, no, you feel insulted. Yes.
Cameron (08:22)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (08:43)
but what they were saying, you misinterpreted it.
Cameron (08:47)
Right. And that, your emotions don't necessarily, your emotions are real. They don't necessarily reflect reality. And that's a difficulty that we run into with children, but also in the ancient tradition, let's be honest. Yeah. I mean, what, yeah. Betterhelp.com anyone? Yeah. So we also need to recognize that in the ancient view, just the last thing I'll say about the emotions, the part of the venerable
Nathan (08:53)
There you go. That's what I was looking for.
And adults, let's not blame this all on kids.
Cameron (09:15)
pursuit of conforming the soul to reality, involved also properly ordering the emotions. And I noticed some modern listeners that's going to sound alien. Who the heck are you to tell me how to feel? Well, actually, if there is an objective moral order and a real arrangement to the cosmos, then there are appropriate emotions.
And there are emotions that are wrong, that's a virtue that has to be trained in people.
Nathan (09:44)
Well, that's
what we call growing up. When you develop the skills to properly understand the world that's happening around you and respond according to reality and help other people do it. That's called maturity.
Cameron (09:49)
Yes.
⁓ Well, one place,
yes it is. And one place where you can, one kind of thought on this that I think is really helpful comes from C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. It's actually at very beginning of the book where he's talking about, he gives a famous example of, that Coleridge uses where two tourists are before a big waterfall. One of them says that's pretty. The other one says that's sublime. And Lewis is singling out for critique.
a little English textbook that was sent to him to be reviewed. He changed the name of the reviewers now, unfortunately the internet being what it is, those reviewers are, he calls them Gaius and Titius, but now they're known. We know who they are and they have their actual names and they're remembered in infamy because of him. anyway, he looks, they singled this story out from Coleridge and they say, well, Coleridge was wrong. What he meant to say or what he should have said if he was more accurate was,
This waterfall inspires in me sublime feelings. So, and this turns out to be a dark road to kind of a sort of relativism according to Lewis. And his point is, no, there is an appropriate response to an awesome sight. If you're standing before the Grand Canyon, you say, it's cool, man. That is a less appropriate response than somebody who says,
this is awesome in the true sense of that word or fantastic. Yeah.
Nathan (11:27)
Okay, let me give you one. Let me on that.
know a guy who rolled up to the Grand Canyon. He was on a trip. He's like, yeah, so I'm like Grand Canyon. And dad said, what'd you say? He's like, well, I looked over the edge of that and said, well, that's the solution to the world's landfill fill problem and jumped in my van and kept on going. Most of us would be like, that's.
Cameron (11:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, so we would agree that there are appropriate, well, we wouldn't all agree, but we're making the case that there are appropriate expressions of emotion that actually conform to reality. They're not just subjective feelings. You make me think of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie where there's a shot of the Grand Canyon and one of them goes, when are they gonna fill that in? Anyway, so.
Nathan (12:11)
But it's funny, we laugh at that because so our laughter at these improves the point. So, all right, back up then and give us the soft hard virtue distinction.
Cameron (12:14)
Because of how inappropriate is. Yeah. Yeah. It proves the point. Yep. Yeah.
So that's, so the virtues we would recognize these are, these are moral pursuits. These are, these are activities and habits that make you into a good person, a moral person. So making a distinction between the soft and the hard virtues is not necessarily always that helpful because if
If you say soft virtues, it sounds weak and bad and spineless. And that's not really what we should take away. But there are certain virtues that will stand you in good stead when you're helping people. And in relationships, those would be virtues of love and compassion. Yeah, let's get the list out.
Nathan (13:03)
Can I just give a list of just broad things
that people have considered to be virtues? So I'm pulling here from our oft-quoted Rebecca DeYoung, Glittering Vices book. So here's a compiled list. So she said there are wisdom and knowledge virtues, which would be creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective, innovation. Then you have courage ones like bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality, and zest. Humanity ones.
like love, kindness, social intelligence, justice category, citizenship, fairness, leadership, temperance, includes forgiveness and mercy and humility and prudence and self-control. And then transcendence, where we find appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality. So that's the big basket. And the Christian tradition has narrowed those down into seven, three of them theological, faith, hope, and love, and then four of them cardinal virtues.
which would be practical wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. So when we're just throwing the word virtue out there, maybe some of these jog your mind as you're listening along here of kind of those basic categories of what we're largely talking about.
Cameron (14:14)
Yeah. And so a basic division then between hard and soft would be, soft would be largely inter-relational virtues that guide relationships and community. Hard virtue, not always. And you know, this breaks down at a certain point too. can, but let's just, let me just say that for right now and then we could add qualifiers and footnotes. So the soft virtues relate to relationships, community, friendship, that sort of thing. Harder virtues have to do with.
Bearing up under difficult circumstances. So there you have, you know, courage, perseverance, carrying out your responsibilities, you know, being persistent duty in the face of a great crisis. you think in the ancient world, these would have understood in martial terms, right? So during times of military campaigns, warfare, that kind of thing. So that's what we mean. One isn't better than the other, but...
Nathan (14:52)
Persistence, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (15:10)
We tend to, so yeah, let me just stop there for right now and say that having said that, I think that the Christian vision of fits into the harder category because it has to do with bearing up under difficult circumstances and doing the right thing, even when it looks like it won't work. I'll pause there for a second.
Nathan (15:34)
So
yeah, because well, it seems like we have a subtle contradiction here because at the beginning of the episode you're saying people think of hope in this kind of like, it's just somebody who's able to do hard things in difficult times. But that is also the sentence that you just used, but I think you mean two different things by. So so clarify this.
Cameron (15:50)
No, no, no, that's not what I said. but it's good that you brought that up.
No, I said, I deliberately said people who have a good attitude. So the cultural understanding really, if we spell it out technically, and again, it's important to say, yeah, it's not a formal thing. People don't think it through. What it actually translates to is optimism. The cultural understanding of hope conflates it with optimism. And we've said this before on the Thinking Out Loud podcast, but basically it's
Nathan (15:58)
okay.
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (16:18)
This is somebody who has a sunny disposition, has a great attitude in difficult circumstances, but firmly believes that things will work out, that things will turn out well, regardless of the circumstances. So little wonder then when you really confront, and there are certain times where, you know, maybe you're in the hallmark store and this feels really inspirational and you love it, but during times of cultural crisis, these people tend to be seen for what they actually are, which is naive.
Because there are times where things are bad. There are times where it's very clear from an earthly perspective, all things being equal, that stuff is not going to work out. And that you may be committing yourself to a pursuit that may well claim your life, that may well, and that might be, that might be physical death, but that also might be, you you give your life away to something that will largely be seen as a failure. It would, you know, in the sense that it did not work, but it was the right thing.
to do. So that's the contrasting picture of hope that I'd like to set before us here.
Nathan (17:22)
Mm-hmm. Okay.
So let's talk about some reference then, because I think we want to move into the direction of like, well, so how do we get there? How do we cultivate this harder virtue of hope? And to jump back to Aristotle, he says that virtues never naturally arise within humanity. So nobody is born with persistence, for example, or fill in the blank there. But he says they can be formed by habit.
by repetition and by training that the virtues are developed. But he also said you can never and I think this has some interesting Christian implications here that you can't train something to have virtue that is against its actual nature. So the virtue doesn't arise from the nature. So he says take a rock and toss it up in the air. The nature of a rock in the air is to go down. And you say, okay, well by by training by Habitas,
Cameron (17:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nathan (18:20)
We can train this rock to want to go up. But he says, no, if you toss a rock up in the air 10,000 times, the nature of the rock is still to go down. But in humans, although virtue does not arise from our nature, we do have the capacity for it to be cultivated in us. So there's that potential is actually there as a, it doesn't naturally arise within us, but it also is an actual possibility.
Cameron (18:38)
We have the potency, as I think Aristotle would say.
Nathan (18:50)
Now, his whole thing about Eudaimonia and Erotae and the perfect eye and the golden mean and all of that is fascinating. It gets interesting though when we bring Christianity into this where suddenly we have Christ-likeness as the referent for what maturity looks like. then we, I mean, when you talk about the idea of discipleship, catechism, habitas, spiritual formation, these are big, big things in the history of the church who have recognized a...
they do not naturally arise within human instinct to nature and B, it is a God given aim created part of what it means to be human that these things are expected for them to mature in us as we mature in Christ. So the Christian version of this is we actually have an embodied example of what this looks like. We're not just, so, cause, cause I think when we talk about theological virtues, it has that same naive like, isn't that cute?
Cameron (19:36)
Yes.
Mm-hmm, it does.
Nathan (19:45)
But in Christian
history, not a theological virtue is a deeply
pragmatic for lack of a... it means something tangible in the world.
Cameron (19:56)
Yeah, has a concrete expression. It has to be trained and inculcated. call, as Christians, we call those the spiritual disciplines that get you on the road to displaying the fruits of the spirit. And of course, this is also, there's a supernatural part here. I just named the Holy Spirit, cooperation with the Holy Spirit. But yes, we have a vision and the vision isn't a theological statement. It's not a creed. It's not the Westminster Confession or the 39 Articles or the Heidelberg Catechism or...
I can't name one that would be germane to you, Nathan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm trying to... Okay, there we go.
Nathan (20:27)
The New Testament it's like it's like my grandpa
used to say the New Testament is a wonderful creed. It's just so much to memorize No
Cameron (20:36)
⁓ boy. All right. Yeah. Well, you know what? Touche brother. That was great. All right. Yeah. I will raise you the new, the, the, yeah, the Westminster confession, the new Testament.
All right. It's a, it's a person. It's Jesus Christ. So we have, we have the person who embodies these virtues. And when we look at the life of Jesus, it's not a hallmark card. And it's not a promise of having merely a good attitude.
Jesus doesn't have a very good attitude when he cleanses the temple, for instance. And he certainly seems to have a very grueling experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now it's not all, you know, there's another movie that I like called First Reformed and there's a part where two pastors are talking and one of the pastors says to the other, you're always in the garden. You know, I mean, it's not all, you know, just.
Sweating tear, you know blood and and all of this you're always in the garden so sometimes I think I can I have the I can have the tendency to sort of be a little bit of a morbid person who's when my thought life always in the garden so I'm not saying that this is a completely joyless exercise at all you see a lot of Yeah, right. Yeah, that's precisely but you see a lot of I mean you see a lot of joy and and Dancing and feasting and enjoyment in in you know, Jesus's life as well. So I'm not I'm not saying that but hope
Nathan (21:44)
The Garden of Gethsemane, not the Garden of Eden in Cameron's...
Cameron (22:01)
in its concrete expression of, and as it is predicated on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, it's not a light thing and it's not just optimism. Yeah.
Nathan (22:13)
Okay, let me give
you try this one on for thought. So one of my brothers asked this question in a small group. He was leading a week or two ago and I thought it was kind of fascinating. What do think the apostle Paul looked like? Now I'm not saying what color hair did he have, but here is a person who reportedly had been beaten with rocks to the point that people thought he was dead multiple times, starved, whipped, mean, missing teeth and I
Cameron (22:31)
ugly apparently.
Yep.
Yep.
Nathan (22:43)
Missing ear like disfigured face limped probably Hey, so so think of that almost grotesque imagery of Somebody whose body has been literally disfigured Who then comes in with some sort of message about rejoice rejoice always and I will say it again rejoice Let your joy be evident
Cameron (22:46)
Yep. Yep.
There you go. Yeah, so there you go. So I guess in some ways, I think going back to that earlier example, which was probably a little bit jarring, I agree with the character in the show who said, people want gossip and carnage. And the character who makes that statement is allegedly a murderer, by the way.
Nathan (23:07)
Yeah.
Nah, we
want gossip and carnage over there, which requires no virtue for us to live in the context of.
Cameron (23:27)
Well, yeah, right. We want it over
there, watch it from a safe distance from the couch, but his other statement that hope is boring, I agree that the cultural vision of hope as just mere optimism is indeed boring. I don't think this guy would make the same kind of scoffing statement if he met with a disfigured person of Paul the apostle. When somebody comes to you.
in those circumstances and from that kind of a life and says to you, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice, it's a lot more startling. And I've met, I mean, I know you have too, Nathan, I've met people, Pauline people. I mean, people who were, I mean, I grew up in the mission field. So I met people who, I met a guy whose son had been devoured by a hippopotamus in front of him. And he smiled and said,
Nathan (24:09)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (24:21)
I have seen amazing things. saw my son destroyed by hippopotamus and I'm here to tell you, God is so good. That will stop you dead in your Western comfortable tracks right there. Your true crime reading tracks safely from the distance of your couch. when we're talking about hope, so part of this is Nathan, just, I also wanted to, yeah, just kind of, this is sort of a response. Sam, if you're listening, hi, to that agency all those years ago who said, yeah, you know, hope doesn't sell.
Yeah, I think that's false. The cultural understanding of hope, sure. But what we're talking about here and what we're devoted to on, yeah, it's about how you live. But it's also, it's not boring. It's actually pretty frightening. And if you actually meet a hopeful person, this is another way to show the difference here. You mentioned the apostle Paul, I think it was just so good. Think about some of the most hopeful people I know are some of the most culturally.
Nathan (24:54)
is not economics. It's not about what sells, it's about how you live.
Cameron (25:16)
Well, in every other category, pessimistic people I've ever met. I'm thinking of people who are people who teach in the inner city, for instance, for years and years, who didn't run away after the first year, who teach in the inner city or social workers or people who work in crisis counseling, work with addicts. mean, these people know exactly what's going on. They know that most of the people, most of the kids that they deal with, whether they're a teacher or most of the people they know are lost causes. Most of them are going to relapse.
Or they're going to get sucked into the same cycle of crime that their families have for years and years, and they're going to end up dead eventually. They know the score, but they keep doing what they're doing. Not because it works, so to speak, but because it's the right thing to do. They're the least sentimental, the least sappy, bleeding heart people you can possibly imagine. But on another level, there's a level of deep, true hope and compassion in them that's all too rare.
that you won't find in just somebody who sits on their couch and scrolls with tears in their eyes because they see pictures of something unjust from a great distance and they write about it on social media. Have I offended enough people yet? I don't know.
Nathan (26:24)
In
Peter, when we're told to give a reason for the hope that we have, it's helpful if you go and look at all the other references to hope in the book of 1 Peter. They're all in reference to what God has done in the world through Christ. So Christian hope functions as a virtue that we're to cultivate, but it also has a historic referent for the future vision. So it's, it's different than saying, I hope I win the lottery or I hope this person gets elected or I hope whatever.
because that's not connected to anything certain. Where Christian hope does have this gritty... ⁓
Cameron (27:00)
Yeah. Well,
it's a living hope because it's Jesus. so in this world we'll have trouble, but fear not because Jesus has overcome the world. So there's a grounding and a certainty and assurance of good expectations. But in the long run, this side of Jesus' second coming, we know that we'll suffer, but we also know simultaneously that Jesus is coming again and we'll make all things new because he's not still dead.
He rose from the dead. But a lot hangs on that, right? Everything hangs on that. That's why Paul says, if Jesus is not raised, we are of all men most to be pitied. Why would he say that? Yeah.
Nathan (27:32)
There's a...
I talking to my kids about long distance running the other day and I said, a lot of it is physiological, but a lot of it is also learning where the true limits of what your body can handle are. And I said, one of the things that helped me be successful is I can suffer a little bit longer than other people can when it comes to running. so there's a sense there of what is the actual boundary
Cameron (28:00)
Very true of Nathan, by the way. This guy suffers a lot when comes to running. ⁓
Nathan (28:08)
I was running with somebody the other day and they're like, I'm about to pass out. was like, no, you'll you stop seeing in color before you pass out when you're running. Like you still see in color. You're fine. the, this idea of, yeah, so, so what, like you, kind of just learn like, what's the actual threshold of this is a problem. And Christians historically using Jesus as their example. I mean, that's all that's in, that's in the chapter before in first Peter.
Cameron (28:19)
So you know what it's like to get to the point where you're not where you're where you go black and white.
Nathan (28:36)
Jesus suffered, you an example of saying, what's the threshold of like, when is this actually a problem? ⁓ And so it's saying that it's bad and that it hurts and it's ugly and it's broken. Yes, but it's also not Cameron, just the people who are out there, you know, getting their teeth knocked out for the gospel. But I'm thinking of all the Sunday school teachers that stay after class and pick up the pencils and the scraps of paper under the table and the hours of just investing.
Cameron (28:36)
Mm. Yeah.
Amen.
people working the nurseries.
Nathan (29:05)
in the nurseries, the behind the scenes, just the simple like
Cameron (29:06)
Thank you. Yep. Yep.
Nathan (29:09)
day after day, the repetition of I'm cleaning up a mess that will happen again. And that's something that I'm doing in this cycle will have a positive influence in the future of the world.
Cameron (29:21)
But see, this is not a soft, you know, just light sense of optimism. This is gritty stuff. And it's, it's powerful stuff. It's muscular. And I'm not, I don't mean it's masculine or I mean it's tough. It requires perseverance and it requires a sense of responsibility. It requires devotion and dedication. It's a really, and it's, it's so you see why it's so, so needed in our world. So important.
Nathan (29:48)
Yeah.
I saw somebody actually, think it was when my brothers was pointing out to me that on, ⁓ new year's Eve, they saw somebody who was a little bit overweight, ⁓ who was out running and you could tell they hadn't been running for a long time. Like this was something that they had just started. And he said, I really think that person has a chance because
Cameron (30:12)
Hmm.
Nathan (30:13)
If you were a little bit, say, say you want to lose some pounds and you're going to start running and it's the last week of December, when are you probably going to start doing that? January 1st, when the first rolls around, but if you like, what does the calendar have to do with when you start? What you should not do as a result of this podcast, like, you know what I'm going to cultivate hope in my life starting January, 2027. You know, it's so there isn't a, a future. So, so there's a.
Cameron (30:21)
Yeah, right. for January 1st, of course. Yep.
Right.
It's always tomorrow in those scenarios. Yeah.
The diet starts tomorrow. The exercise regimen starts tomorrow. I feel the same. That's a great example, Nathan. I feel the same way when, you know, ⁓ there's a kind of trope among the sort of the gym community. no, January 31st, our gym is going to be absolutely thronged. Well, fortunately it'll thin out by the end of January, early February. Sad thing is that that's true. But what I try to do is,
Say, all right, no, but hey, you're here. These people are here right now. And I try to do everything I can to stay, keep, keep doing this. This is great. One day at a time, press forward and yeah, forget the calendar. Just, just, just show up, walk through those doors. It doesn't matter. Hey, it was a, it was, maybe it was a ⁓ two star workout today. That's okay. Sometimes you have two star workouts. Maybe you yawned, but you came. Keep doing it. Just keep getting up and doing it. Hope works like that. Just.
Keep doing it day after day after day.
Nathan (31:42)
There
was a guy who sent an email to the leadership of our church and said, I'm going to stop attending church because I have some medical things and I literally just can't stay awake enough to focus. And he's like, and I know that's disrespectful. And we immediately sent letters back and said, we would rather have you come and sleep.
Cameron (32:00)
Yep.
Nathan (32:01)
then we would rather have you come and sleep through the sermon than for you to be isolated and withdraw from community because you think we would be offended if you get tired. And he's like, really? I'm like, honestly, we do not care if you come and fall asleep during the sermon because you got out of bed and you came and you shook some hands and hugged some people and sang some songs and then you had to go. So be it.
Cameron (32:21)
Listen,
here's a phrase for you. Idealism eats hope for breakfast. A lot of the most angry, bitter, disillusioned, cynical people you will meet are people who were idealists at one point and felt betrayed.
Nathan (32:37)
well,
despair comes from unmet expectations.
Cameron (32:41)
Unmet expectations with hope. truly hopeful people are not idealists. Hey, they know things suck. They know nursery duty is, is often, it can be a joy, but let's face it. Kids are obnoxious and there's snot coming out of their nose. It's not fun, but it's the right thing to do. Working with addicts, horrible, messy, painful, emotionally draining work, but it's a good thing to do. Pastoring, horrible, messy, painful work, but it's a good, it's the right thing to do.
Nathan (32:49)
Mm-hmm.
You
But those are only forms of things that we've specialized and outsourced to other people that are to be part of all of our experiences.
We do live in a hyper specialized world, which makes some of this tricky, but there by and large are all things that we were called to do that are that are difficult and the degree of momentum that we can maintain through the difficulty shows whether or not we have a little, ⁓ generator of hope turning away with inside the, flesh power pack that the Lord has given us for however many, ⁓ what, what did Willard call it? ⁓ he called your body.
Cameron (33:45)
your little power
pack, your body's a power pack. Yep.
Nathan (33:46)
Your body's your little power pack. You know,
two legs. ⁓ But I do think that the people who do that well, not as an attitude, who can say this is miserable and I'm going to do it anyway. This is this won't have good outcomes, but it's the right thing for me to do. ⁓ The other night at a basketball game, the ref made a call and against the team that I was cheering for and I said, yep, that was the right call.
And one of my sons turned to me and said, come on, dad, whose side are you on? And I said, I'm on the side of truth.
And one of the parents turned around to my son and was like, I bet you hear stuff like that a lot. And he laughed. But it's true. It's like, okay, yeah, the call went against the team I was cheering for, but it was the right call. We're on the side of truth. We're on the side of hope. Whether or not it's pragmatic in the short term, Jesus doesn't call us to speculate or to strategize on that. It's put our head down or keep our eyes to the heavens, actually. And then, then onward we go. So,
Cameron (34:25)
Thank you very much.
Nathan (34:49)
This isn't really, I mean we've talked about a lot of theoretical stuff, but the hope of this conversation is that it would actually bear practical fruit in your life. That we would calibrate what's normal in the world around us and that we can call out things that are bad and broken and wrong. And that the way that we feel in response to that brokenness that we see would not stop us in our tracks, but because we have a hard, virtuous, deep theological vision of what it means to put one foot in front of the other until the Lord
tells us to stop that we can really live in a way that honors him and is good for the our own formation along along the way. for the glory of God and for our neighbor's good is one of the repeated lines that we use, but you don't get there without cultivating the virtues and letting the Lord shape and form that in you. And hope is an absolutely necessary one for this day and time. You've been listening to thinking out loud podcast where we think out loud about current events.
and Christian hope.