December 1998 Issue

Advent is a season of hope. Indeed, many churches are changing their Advent paraments to blue, the traditional color of hope. No surprise then that the epistle lesson for the second Sunday begins and ends in "hope."

"If faith is our longing for the eternal, for God," Miguel Unamuno writes, then "hope is God's longing, the longing of the eternal, of the divine in us, which advances to meet our faith and raises us up" (Essays and Soliloquies ). Emily Dickinson writes:

The poem picks up a theme common in both literary and artistic depictions of hope. It is both fragile—"the thing with feathers," (in the second stanza) "the little Bird"—and very tough: It never stops singing "at all"; it is not abashed by the sorest of storms or "in the chillest land."

Indeed, "hope springs eternal," Pope avers (Essay on Man, Epistle I, 95). That is, until "the mighty Casey strikes out." Ernest Lawrence Thayer's famous baseball poem reminds us of the ephemeral nature of what we might call "secular" hope. The poem quotes Pope: The Mudville fans that remain though their team trails 4-2 with two out in the ninth do so out of the "hope which `springs eternal.'" If only Casey could get to bat! Not much chance. But "lulu" Flynn and "cake" Jimmy Blake single and double. And there's the mighty Casey. Who strikes out. Not only is hope gone; "there is no joy in Mudville."¹ (Note that it is with joy that the God of hope may fill the Romans [v. 13].)

Opposed to such secular hope so easily dashed is an unperturbed hope completely unaffected by the events of the world. Such Hope is depicted in Pieter Bruegel's engraving for The Virtues series³ (executed under the supervision of Hieronymus Cock and published in 1558). The engraving is filled with a raging storm that wrecks the boats of fishermen and the galley of a trader, that crashes against the walls of a town already on fire, that rushes to the feet of a farmer tilling his land. The sailors are full of fear; the townspeople ignore both storm and fire; the farmer works frantically. Inside the walls of the jail in the foreground, prisoners pray; their faces reflect nothing but despair. In contradiction to everything and everyone else, Hope stands serene, actually floating on an anchor; no wind, no wave, no tragedy, no concern touches her.

But surely Paul cannot imagine that the Romans live unaffected by Rome. The "holy" Hope that Bruegel depicts seems so otherworldly as to be beyond our reach. So how do we avoid feasting on that "carrion comfort, Despair" of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem. (Hopkins' poem is of interest, because it plays upon the theme of nourishment present in the benediction that closes the passage, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace ... so that you may abound in hope ...." The poet declares that he'll not, even in this dark world, feast on "carrion comfort, Despair," because he may yet find nourishment in a "eucharistic" hope. Hope, too, can feed.)⁴

Another approach to a kind of hope that lives in the world rather than floating above it is found in Robert Creeley's wonderfully dark and humorous, I Know a Man. The narrator of the short poem is talking to his friend, because he (the speaker) is "always talking." His constant jabber is, in fact, a sign of his anxiety that he will fall into despair in this dark world. Indeed, he tells his friend (the man):

One possibility, the speaker suggests, is to hedge:

In the absence of real hope, we buy a hedge against the darkness, a piece of security: a (goddamn) big car, a (goddamn) big house, a (goddamn) fort. Creeley's language is not simply profane; it is intentionally so. For the friend replies,

Again the (this time blasphemous) language is intentional. We keep on going (we "drive") "for / christ's sake." In the world of Creeley's poem, the darkness does surround, nor is it defeated by buying any kind of "goddamn" security. Rather it is endured—and more than endured: We may come through it, if (again) "for / christ's sake," we look out where we're going.⁵

This kind of hope has at least three elements, Paul tells us. It is steadfast (v. 4). It is possible only in the company of others. (See the center of the passage, especially verse 7, and Rick Carlson's exegesis.) It abounds by the grace of God to nourish and bring joy.

Richard S. Dietrich—Decatur, GA

1. Emily Dickinson's poem is available, among other places, in Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson's Poems, selection and introduction by Thomas H. Johnson (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1961), pp. 34-35.
2. "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest L. Thayer is much anthologized. One place it can be found is The Baseball Reader, edited by Charles Einstein (New York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980), pp. 300-301.
3. Pieter Bruegel's engraving is also frequently reproduced. It is readily available in the Time-Life Library of Art's The World of Bruegel (New York: Time-Life Books, 1968), p. 83.
4. "Carrion Comfort" is not one of Hopkins' poems that is often anthologized. It may, however, be found in Poetry of the Victorian Period, edited by J.H. Buckley and G.B. Woods (New York: Scott Foresman, 1965), p. 788.
5. Robert Creeley's "I Know a Man" appeared originally in his volume For Love, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1962. It may also be found, among other places, in Contemporary American Poetry (Second Edition), edited by Donald Hall (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 147-148.