Hope & Optimism
May 1. Always a day, over the years, that filled me with excitement. The end of winter. The end of school. Summer.
This year it feels more ominous. Perhaps because I am now so long past school, retired, so I don't stagger into a summer vacation after a debilitating year at the job, I no longer get the adrenilin rush I used to from the coming of summer.
But it feels more substantive than that. The so-called "nuclear option" the Republican Senators are considering, the utter seriousness with which conservative Episcopalians are determined to dismantle the fragile coalition the church has been for many decades, George Steinbrenner's annual spring threat to fire every member of his Yankees if they don't start winning games, a big sewer spill into the nicest beach in San Diego, a block from where we spend the winter, all come together in this normally benign time of year, to make me wonder.
Someone has made a distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism is the confidence that I can, with cleverness and hard work, make things come out as I wish. Hope is the willingness to work for what I believe, knowing it will come out as it will, and somehow that will be all right. Even if it isn't as I wished.
The unwillingness to compromise we see all around us; in the Senate, in the Episcopal Church, strikes me as desperation. When we feel things have gone out of control, we become ideologues, our determination. more vigorous the less certain we are, to gain a strangle hold on how things come out.
So-called liberals are less likely to prevail in these times because a large part of our agenda is tolerance of differences and opposition. We believe a healthy system includes people of every stripe, meaning compromise is essential to every decision. The conservative agenda is more about getting it right, even if those who don't agree must be thrown overboard.
Makes me hopeful but not optimistic.
This year it feels more ominous. Perhaps because I am now so long past school, retired, so I don't stagger into a summer vacation after a debilitating year at the job, I no longer get the adrenilin rush I used to from the coming of summer.
But it feels more substantive than that. The so-called "nuclear option" the Republican Senators are considering, the utter seriousness with which conservative Episcopalians are determined to dismantle the fragile coalition the church has been for many decades, George Steinbrenner's annual spring threat to fire every member of his Yankees if they don't start winning games, a big sewer spill into the nicest beach in San Diego, a block from where we spend the winter, all come together in this normally benign time of year, to make me wonder.
Someone has made a distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism is the confidence that I can, with cleverness and hard work, make things come out as I wish. Hope is the willingness to work for what I believe, knowing it will come out as it will, and somehow that will be all right. Even if it isn't as I wished.
The unwillingness to compromise we see all around us; in the Senate, in the Episcopal Church, strikes me as desperation. When we feel things have gone out of control, we become ideologues, our determination. more vigorous the less certain we are, to gain a strangle hold on how things come out.
So-called liberals are less likely to prevail in these times because a large part of our agenda is tolerance of differences and opposition. We believe a healthy system includes people of every stripe, meaning compromise is essential to every decision. The conservative agenda is more about getting it right, even if those who don't agree must be thrown overboard.
Makes me hopeful but not optimistic.
posted by Blayney at 10:49 AM
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