Sounds of Hope

A Musical Metaphor to Build a Symphony of Hope

Robert Janacek

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610976572
  9781498261548
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630875718
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

For a world so out of tune, this treatise intends to correlate from various instruments of learning, a new sound--a sound of hope. This sound will be heard as each truth from key areas of knowledge will be played in a synthesis of theology, psychology, and philosophy, all in the context of a valid cosmology. To listen and read the key concepts and predictions of the secular authorities, our earth is either destined for a massive freeze or one ending in conflagration. Thus the concern of the author is that all too often each area of study is playing its own sound and, valid as it may be, is not listening or seeing what could be if these sounds became part of a symphony. In Sounds of Hope, Robert N. Janacek contends that, when these sounds are truly heard and projected in our anticipated symphony, a new and harmonious world will be enacted. At a time when there are almost constant sounds of hate, death, and hopelessness, a world awaits, one for us to hear and attend as a new concert, a concert playing a score of harmony and hope.

Chapter 1

Sounds of Hope: Present and Future

Into the world of today, as that of yesterday, the future projects not only uncertainty regarding what tomorrow will be like, but also whether there will be a tomorrow. Yet deep within individuals lies a hope that a spark will be ignited amidst the darkness of a world so tuned for hopelessness. Is it possible that there can be meaning and hope, even if on a distant horizon, in a world that quite simply cannot understand? Can there be hope in a world clouded by the fog of despair?

To explore the dynamics of hope is to find the ever present fact that life itself is based on hope. From the mundane to the complex, sounds of hope are heard but too often are muffled by sounds of despair. And a world so filled with pain is searching for that merry sound that will give it a new dynamic to live . . . not merely exist!

For despite a world that is filled with multitudinous achievements, the haunting emptiness of hope and purpose seems too difficult to fill, and because of this need, hope has become an element to be purchased. How and why? Because whenever and wherever a hurting individual visits a therapist or other of the medical or helping professions, a purchase is enacted. And only real hope can begin to heal or alleviate the pain, the meaninglessness of life. But is this purchase expensive? Yes. For whether the one seeking hope must pay monetarily, those who are in this search for hope must invest their all. To hope is to choose, and what one chooses is to project value . . . the value of oneself and one’s future.

We live in a society that is almost afraid to hope, to reach, to believe that there is another way. And while many accept hope as the key, this key is often locked away in past images and containers filled with hope never really loosed! For whether that seeker of hope is an adherent to the Christian faith, or any faith, only a vibrant, active hope can initiate the “other way.”

In a world of collective entities where so many individuals feel lost in the impersonal, hope for the “one” would seem incomprehensible. And once more the picture of a contemporary human being who feels that one does not count is flashed on the screen of human experience. Is hope an avenue to reality and meaning, or merely an idle wish in a meaningless world? Once more the poignant question is spoken either overtly or silently. Are there any sounds of hope in a discordant world? And if so, where are they coming from?

Theologians and psychologists have begun to speak to a new (though very old) hope. And, it is not only those in the field of theology and psychotherapy who have discovered hope, but those in the medical field as well. Recent empirical studies in the area of psycho-immunology have shown that hope has made the very difference between life and death. Contemporary physicians like Carl Simonton, Bernie Siegel, the late Norman Cousins, and other colleagues are becoming increasingly cognizant of the validity and necessity of hope for life in its holistic perspective. No longer is it unfashionable to correlate and initiate physical and psychological factors in the healing process, but now practitioners have begun to involve the spiritual element as well!

To a world that seems to live with the “broken sentences” of life, a word of completeness must speak. And that word, the word of hope, can only come from one who was, is, and will ever be the incarnation of hope: the risen Lord. The world is waiting to hear this ultimate sound of hope that speaks to the present yet offers assurance that we are part of an eternal reality.

To envision a world of hope and to become participants in the building of this new kingdom, one must tune in to hear the sounds of hope from both the present and the future. Too often the extreme concern with the present stifles the sound of a future, a future filled with hope, a future that is fulfilled because of our present relationship with that which is eternal. That oft ignored or forgotten one designated as the “today person” is yet one seeking relationships with not only the present but also the future. We are part of a collective aggregate in the “now” of our life, but to have a future that leaves one as only a memory in society is not enough for a thinking person. And that aggregate is a group of individuals who are on a personal quest—a quest to be. In a world conditioned by ever increasing motif of hopelessness, each person either overtly or implicitly is seeking an answer to life’s brevity. And living—or simply existing—in the confines of this brevity, the awesome sense of nonbeing, is ever present. The quest to be is a never-ending quest, satisfied only when real meaning is found. The individual person desires not only to be a functioning part of today’s society, but also is inculcated within a sense of the “more,” a future beyond one’s limited years. The fear, the creepy apprehension of becoming just “another statistic” in the obituary as a final note is always present. The late theologian Paul Tillich’s description of the modern human situation as “Existential Loneliness” is relevant, and yet “modern” enough even for our post-modern era. To encounter not only contemporary as well as recent and past theologians, but to hear affirmation of hope from such contemporary psychologists as Robert Emmons and Richard Cox regarding the necessity of the spirit, is to become aware of a new “symphony of hope” being written. And the writers of the symphony of hope are ever increasingly tuned to the sense of the spiritual as a valid sound, as well as the more obvious and often louder sounds from the world of the “concrete.”

Our world of today, as the one of both yesterday and tomorrow, is seeking holistic truths, but often such “truths” are isolated from various fields of knowledge. And while the sounds of hope are needed from our present and waited for in the future, the major sounds are ones of violence and despair, emitted not only from the visible sources of despair, but from many that attempt to label themselves as “religion.” The cancer of hate and a proclivity to destroy others are as much in evidence among so-called Christian nations as non-Christian ones. And this from those who profess to be followers of the Christ, the Prince of Peace! When we read the daily papers and watch TV, the fact of good news is sparse in quantity. Are there sounds of hope from the present and future? Yes! But there must be a revolutionary move toward accepting the fact that our hope is not in the concrete, the visible alone, but in the reality of the spirit if we can hear sounds of hope amidst the sounds of despair in a cacophony of violence.

We live in two worlds whether this fact is admitted by those who think they exist in one world or by those who accept a “two world” life. While Albert Einstein (and others before his emergence in the areas of math and science) opens the “secret” of physics to a totally new view and perspective, his discovery would verify what open-minded thinkers have always implied, if not openly verbalized. Life is more than the visible. The reality of the spirit, the unseen, the mystery, is and has been ever before us. Similarly, in the solid denial of theologians such as Gordon Kaufman of Harvard Divinity School, who affirm that there is no evidence of life after death, such affirmation projects a closed mind-set, Happily there are authorities in both fields of science and religion who, with a growing number of others with like minds, dare to affirm a two-world reality of life. It is this writer’s contention that a hurting world that is orientated to hopelessness can only find itself if and when a real theology and a psychology of hope are validated.

The overt and implicit call for hope cannot be ignored if our world of today is to find itself, its purpose, its ultimate goals and fulfillment. To read the daily articles in our newspapers is to see the confusion and fear that permeate all of life. Yet while we expect to see and hear the everyday bad news, the real contradiction is to see and hear the so-called purveyors of hope, the Christian faith participants, give credence, acceptance, and agreement with the method of violence and negation of love. And this emanating from a society built on love that centuries ago was known by “how they loved one another!” It is to such a panorama of contradiction that the revolutionary dynamics of hope proposes to enter a new sound and yet one voiced by the creator at the beginning of time. There can be, and there is, the reality of a new sound, a sound not composed on the scale of hopelessness and the minor key of despair, but one transposed into a major sound of hope of love in action.

To encounter a real and scientifically respectable hope is not to negate the scientific or the area of theology, but to see and listen to the new sound of hope experienced by participants in both areas of knowledge.

Vignettes of how hope makes a difference in life, both subjectively and objectively, are becoming more frequent. And while the elements of hope are becoming more empirically verifiable, the fact remains that there must be a correlative acceptance of the value of both areas of reality. In essence, then, it would appear that the real and inclusive answer to the hurts of the world must be played out on the real life stage by blending these sounds into a harmonious performance of past and present to project a new future and to hear a symphony of hope.

A new future is one that arises from an acceptance of what is really real and is called for from our world of today and yesterday. The sounds of hope have, and continue to have, a sense of listening from the past and the

present in order to build the new future. As noted in my previous work, “real hope must be an active hope, not one of the passive variety.”1

It is to the contemporary sound of hopelessness and despair that a psychology and theology of hope must speak. The foreboding fear of imminent destruction, either by terrorists or a breakdown in our society, is fed not only as the society beyond the church as such, but by those deemed “Christian,” even those affirming they are “born again.” One must ask without being satirical or sarcastic, “what are they reborn for?” As Polkinghorne and Welker have projected in their book, The End of the World and the Ends of God, the collision between the finite and the infinite is clearly set forth. Either we are on a collision course with extinction as our end, or we accept God’s end as a new beginning.2 Today our world waits for a new beginning.

As we hear the sounds of hope sounded by writers such as Polkinghorne and Welker, we begin to see the future of God’s plan, a plan envisioned by those who accept the promise of hope. A world tired of broken promises awaits a verifiable promise based on historical reality, which became alive in the present with anticipation of a new future. Only by hearing sounds of hope can these goals be seen and heard in our uniqueness and in our relationship with the universe.

This unique relationship has been and continues to be set forth by such incisive writers as the late James Loder when he states:

If we turn to the sciences, it will be evident that the human spirit reaches into the depths and unto the outer limits of the universe and beyond. The final result of such exploration remains beyond our grasp, but there are important analogies between the exocentric dynamics of the human spirit and the expanding universe.3

Our culture and the world in which it functions projects the theme of unhope in multiple areas. From the torn aspects of a society in almost constant conflict—social, political, personal, and religious—hope is clouded by the fog that creates unhope, a fog that seems to increase in these areas and every area of concern.

To envision hope in such a scene, there must come a wind from the beyond to drive this fog away. As we look through the fog of degradation, only the fresh air of the resurrection projects hope. For amidst the past failure of a world permeated by darkness and death, one came from beyond in the person of the risen Christ. And suddenly the scene began to change. Life has arrived! The worship of the past and the present, with their focus on only the now, sees and welcomes the future, the new.

1. Janacek, Theology and Psychology of Hope, 6.

2. Polkinghorne and Welker, eds., End of the World, 5.

3. Loder, The Logic of the Spirit, 6.

Chapter 2

Sounds of Hope Being Heard

Contemporary psychology has shown us an increasing interest in ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Prelude
• Chapter 1: Sounds of Hope: Present and Future
• Chapter 2: Sounds of Hope Being Heard
• Chapter 3: Sounds of Hope: Dynamics and Impact
• Chapter 4: Sounds of Hope Transposed
• Chapter 5: Sounds of Hope: Composing a Symphony
• Chapter 6: Sounds of Hope: a Symphony of Hope in Praxis
• Chapter 7: Sounds of Eschatological Hope in a World of Discord
• Chapter 8: Sounds of Hope in “The Unfinished Symphony”
• Chapter 9: Sounds of Hope in Progress
• Postlude
• Bibliography