Sunday, April 03, 2005
Cynics & Saints
Another quote from Jim Wallis' book God's Politics:
Perhaps the only people who view the world realistically are the cynics and the saints. Everybody else may be living in some kind of denial about what is really going on and how things really are. And the only difference between the cynics and the saints is the presence, power, and possibility of hope. And that, indeed, is a spiritual and religious issue. More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice. Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision. And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels - what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds - all based on your faith. You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world - just like like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope.
Perhaps the only people who view the world realistically are the cynics and the saints. Everybody else may be living in some kind of denial about what is really going on and how things really are. And the only difference between the cynics and the saints is the presence, power, and possibility of hope. And that, indeed, is a spiritual and religious issue. More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice. Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision. And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels - what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds - all based on your faith. You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world - just like like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope.
posted by Mike Clawson at 4:47 AM | Permalink | 
2 Comments:
At 4/04/2005 11:58:00 AM, 
Mike Clawson
I completely agree my friend... though I think that's pretty much what Wallis was saying too when he said that hope is a choice, i.e. a "leap of faith" as you'd put it. It's a decision to view the world in a certain way, to accept some things as "truth" or "reality" without necessarily having perfect knowledge to rest that decision on.
Though I think cynicism (in it's extreme form... a little bit of cynicism is a good thing) is equally a leap of faith, just in the other direction. It takes just as much of a faith choice to believe life is meaningless and futile as it is to have hope that it's not.
So what would you suggest as an alternative?