SHORT VERSION: I’m not optimistic, but I am learning that active hope can be claimed as a way of life. The Porch Gathering in March is for anyone who senses something similar. If it calls to you, please join us.
MORE: Good people often tell me that they think I am optimistic, but I don’t think they're right. At the very least, if I seem optimistic, it’s the result of a decision, not a disposition.
I’ve learned by experience that stories of separation, scapegoating and selfishness do not serve us; that the loudest voices are rarely the wisest ones; and that our storytelling patterns often prioritize the ugly or frightening things, making them appear to be not only the biggest, but the most unchangeable.
I grew up surrounded by such stories, but I also witnessed what happens when people begin to exchange them for stories of evolving interdependency, shared responsibility, and loving service in the common good. Peace is possible, but only when it is imaginable. If our stories leave no room for courage, creativity, and community we should not be surprised if our actions seem restricted to repeating the wounds of the past.
If I were to be truly open with you, I would tell you that I am not “naturally” optimistic. I’ve experienced tremendous fear and loss, confusion about my place in the world, misplaced guilt and shame, and a long-term struggle with the belief that I am fundamentally incompetent. Not enough to be valued in this world, to be useful, to deserve a meaningful - never mind "happy" - life.
Yet thanks to friends and fellow travelers, I’ve also tasted profound affirmation, encouragement, and a sense that I am indeed part of this world, along with you, with some gifts to bring to the table, and a safe/brave place to ask for support along the way.
I think a better way to describe me is that I’ve often felt so vulnerable and wounded that many of my comforting certainties have been called into question, but I’ve also learned from people who have allowed their wounds to be transformed by a larger story. There is enough inevitable and perhaps even necessary suffering and fear in the world that does not need me to multiply it with my fantasies of doom. The despair and helplessness I often feel must not be the end of the story - if I let that happen, then they become self-perpetuating. A death loop.
What I try to do instead is to claim hope grounded in the experience of enlarging the stories I listen to, believe, and share beyond the death-loop restrictions of unconscious negativity. Grounded hope is not a fantasy, but emerges from a larger story about reality rooted in observing and participating in it; a commitment to discovering and sharing the most truth we can know. Staying in the arena for the sake of life and the evolution of love; and recognizing that the first sign of hope is the very fact that I feel the sadness of the world’s burdens rather than ignoring them. The second sign is to decide to hold the sadness alongside the infinite reasons for gratitude and celebration, and try to discern the right size of it all.
The second sign is when I slow down enough to ask what place I may have in this story - the gifts and needs I bring, and whom I should ask to join on the path.
The third is when I seek to embody those gifts and needs, and all that means is a decision to imagine what it means to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, or to love my neighbor as myself.
Whether those words appear as poetry or cliché, they have never yet failed to produce lives worth living. What has actually happened is that we have defined love so superficially that we’re not sure how it relates to the “real” world of work and money, of relationships and risk, of ambition and concern. It is said that we use a tiny percentage of our brain power, and that we cannot imagine the possibilities if we were to expand our consciousness even one meaningful step. The same is true for our storytelling - too often passive, too often trivial or shallow, too often - even - poisonous.
The Porch Gathering is dedicated to replacing bad stories with better ones. Not perfect ones, of course, but we’re seriously committed to authentically embodying a weekend of transformative storytelling, claiming active hope, and imagining ways that will fuel us for more meaningful, connected, creative, courageous lives.
We’ll hear from James Alison, speaking about finding insanity amidst the bombardment of stories that are, quite simply, insane. James is an English theologian and priest well known for bringing the revolutionary work of the great French thinker René Girard to a wider public; and recently Pope Francis personally affirmed James’ work in an extraordinary way.
Jasmin Pittman will facilitate some of us in exploring the relationship between trust and hope… Christine Ruth will help us imagine a heroine’s journey… Brian Volck will explore the gift of pain… Brian Ammons will invite us to consider transformative storytelling as a life’s calling…There’ll be movies and music, conversation and contemplation, and lots of opportunity to decompress from the toxic stories that breed helplessness and despair.
I need this weekend, and I know many of us do too. If you can make it, come on over - March 7th-10th, at Montreat near Asheville, NC. All the details are at www.theporchgathering.com.
And if you can’t make it, know that we will miss you, and we’re going to continue on this path - you can join us any time.
Gareth