Going Deep this month is a collaborative effort by members of the Coordinating Committee, emerging from a conversation about what we could say in an essay scheduled to go out two days after the election, knowing that we would remain a deeply divided country, regardless of the outcome.
The weeks and months leading to this election have been anxious, to say the least, and Donald Trump’s re-election increases that anxiety for a large portion of the voters, especially those of us who care about the climate crisis and the rapidly closing window in which we can avert catastrophe.
As we consider the role of faith in this challenging moment, we should remind ourselves that faith communities can still be people of hope, no matter the election results. Even in an election such as this, hope should not be lost, even if opportunity is. But we may have to dig deep to find it.
It helps to distinguish between optimism and hope. Optimism is the expectation that such goodness is right around the corner. Hope contains a determined conviction that the world can be better, good, and just, and that we can be better, good, and just, even if it’s not right around the corner.
Or, as Vaclav Havel writes:
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
This is not to say that a prevailing November vote for bigotry and selfishness will someday prove good or is somehow God’s will in the moment. What always makes sense though, is persistent love and the fight for justice. Determined hope does not rely on how things turn out but rather upon what is right. This means we don’t do what we do only in the expectation that it will work. We do it because it is right. Doing right always makes sense, not just in a practical, human management sense, but because doing right and practicing love make sense all the time and everywhere.
This has always been the wisdom of religious traditions with long experience. The Psalms are masterful in joining lament with hope:
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. (Psalm 42:11)
Buddhist Joanna Macy writes in her book, Active Hope:
Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for. Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do, rather than have.
Wisdom, wit, and courage always matter in the moment, whether big or small. We humans, wrapped in ignorance as we often are, cannot really grasp the import of our actions in the moments we take them. We can’t tell if a moment will actually become big or small. Thus, love, as that in which we place our hope, always makes sense no matter the moment. To act in love is to act with hope.
So how does this apply to this critical moment of opportunity and political crisis? How then should we hope? Even if our optimism gets crushed in the moment, our hope need not be. Various moments, fleeting as they are, do not determine what makes sense in life. Our faith does. Even if this election ushers in a dark and violent season, our hope can remain fundamentally unchanged. We can still get up and do what we have always done – that which is loving, wise, savvy, and just. In the moment, no matter the moment. We can practice Active Hope.
Should we seek to capitalize on moments of opportunity and turning points of change? Yes, that too is what hope does. And how do we do that? For concrete examples of active hope, we need look no further than our guest speakers at TAF General Meetings over the past year.
When we spoke with Katharine Hayhoe in November 2023, she spoke directly to the importance of hopeful action when we become discouraged, saying, “Anxiety, grief, despair are natural, rational emotions, but the question is, what do we do with that? Do we use those to fuel our determination to fight for a better future out of love, and to bring other people to that fight with us?…I’m convinced that together we can do it, but we can’t do it if we stay stuck in paralyzing anxiety.”
Instead, she said, we should engage in the positive feedback cycle of action and hope: action breeds hope, hope breeds action. She also reminded us that we don’t need hope when things are going great, but that hope comes out of suffering, and the worse things get, the more we need it. Hope, she said, “recognizes that we’re in a bad place, and…that there is a better future possible. What hope does is connect where we are to that better future, and it shows us what we can do to move along that path.”
Speaking directly to concerns about the presidential election, she reminded us that 99.9% of elected officials in this country serve at the local, county, and state level, not the federal. Many of those officials control energy decisions, and so working with such officials, particularly those we may even know personally, is hopeful action. It is hopeful action to move toward climate solutions from the ground up, wisely keeping in mind what Hayhoe said, that the federal level may be the last to change.
In addressing our polarization, the religious leaders who led a preaching workshop in August 2024 suggested that congregations are among the few places where people gather around common beliefs, although they might hold different political views. If appropriate, your congregation could provide space for conversations that can help us move forward together, while providing guidance and parameters that guarantee safety for anyone who chooses to take part. Speaking at our September 2024 meeting, George Lakey said we cannot learn to handle conflict by avoiding it.
Each of us must respond to this moment as we are led, recognizing that we are in different places, spiritually, emotionally, and geographically. Third Act and Third Act Faith remain committed to fighting for climate and democracy, even in the face of obstacles emerging from this election. Because that is what hope does. As George Lakey put it, “We’re in it together, and we can do together what we cannot do alone.”