On Hope

A while back I was pondering the idea of hope.  Often I have heard it said, “I hope tomorrow is a nice day,” or “I hope your vacation went well.”  Is hope the simple chance that it is so often made out to be, or is it more?  Looking around at the lives of others I believe it to be more important and significant than we often make it out to be.  Hope is the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life.  Hope can exist in the happiest of days and in the darkest of nights; when things are at their best or their worst.  But I arrive to a question.  Hope about what?  What is your hope in?

When I am in the darkest hour of the night, surrounded by danger and uncertainty, is my hope certain?  Is it simply a hope that chance might favour me this time around or is it certain and unchanging?  Many people have found themselves in the dark hour grasping for hope.  Like a climber on a cliff face, they grope around for something solid to grab onto, something that they will be able to rest their weight on.  Often people search desperately for something they can hold onto as they are scaling the cliff of life. For many it’s that great job or that fantastic husband or wife. For others it’s the nice car and house and if you are particularly lucky a boat and pool. 

Walking around downtown Victoria a number of months ago I observed the crowds passing by.  It was later in the day and, as we passed bar after bar and strip club after strip club, I could tell the search for hope was in full swing.  As I looked on I saw thousands of men and women searching for hope in love, alcohol or a variety of other things.  Riding the BC-Transit bus later that night, I was struck by the universal desire for hope in all people.   As I was contemplating a young couple got onto the bus and began looking for a spot.  They had a bag full of clothing and were talking to each other about the days activities.  I moved over to give them room and introduced myself.  But this nagging thought of hope would not go away.  So I asked them a question.  “What do you find hope in?” I asked.  The response was thoughtful.  “That the business that we have started would do well,” was their reply.  I pressed further.  “What if it doesn’t succeed?  What if despite all your efforts the business fails?  What then?  What would you find hope in?”  As they thought my question over I saw a deep sense of sadness overtake them.  Smiles faded and their shoulders drooped.  They had a simple answer, “I don’t know.”

This is the sad state so many people find themselves in.  But, unlike the climber, there are no safety harnesses, no ropes to hold us up when we find the things we place our hope in are as fleeting as the wind.  I have known several people who have found themselves in this position, fumbling around for something they can depend on only to fall back into the great abyss of despair.  Let me be perfectly clear.  The sad but truthful reality is that a complete lack of hope always ends in suicide.  The evidence of this hopelessness surrounds us.  Martin Luther King, Jr. himself spoke of the significance of hope.  “If you lose hope,” he said, “somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

For this reason, I beg that you would find something solid to rest your weight on.  A hope that is certain in the most uncertain of times.  A hope that is constant and unchanging.  One that you know you can rest your weight on and live to tell about it.  It won’t be riches.  It won’t be that nice car or nice home.  It won’t even be a husband or a wife that loves you.  Anything of this life passes away.  It changes and fades and dies.  Find that certain, unchanging hope and you will find real life.  Life worth living.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

- 1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

Take a Seat

What is faith?  There are so many different places and ways I have seen it used.  Sometimes I wonder if those who use it, even myself, realize what we are implying when we say it.  And what does it mean to me today?  As I began to probe I found out several things.  First, and perhaps the most revealing, is that faith is a noun.  You have faith, you don’t ‘do’ faith.  Faith, in and of itself, is not an action or an event or anything at all taking place.  The verb version of this word we use even more commonly than the noun.  To believe.  Quite simply, to have faith in something or someone you have to believe or trust it.

What I also found is that this can mean a whole lot of things.  I looked to real life situations for insight.  For example, for many years man has dreamt of flight but only in relatively recent history have we attained it.  Years ago men would strap large apparatuses to there arms and legs in order to mimic the flight of birds.  They honestly believed that if they were to simply flap hard enough they would lift up into the air.  Their belief was reflected by their actions.  Some were so certain, so trusting in these machines that they would jump off cliffs demonstrating their complete trust and belief.  They really did believe their machines would work.  As they came crashing down it became evident that their faith was misplaced.  They believed something they thought was the truth but, as they soon discovered, was not.

I was recently helping run a climbing tower. Every time we had a group of people come in to use the climbing wall we explained all the safety precautions. We explained how the climbing tower was built around 4 steel reinforced hydro poles (massive cement pillars) that hardened for a full year before the rest of the construction began. The wood used in the construction was a high quality lumber not normally even available inside Canada. The tower was built one level at a time then given a year to settle. When the tower was finally completed after years of painstaking diligence engineers were asked to come examine it. After doing their various tests they exclaimed that the tower was over four times as strong as it was required to be. In fact they went as far as to say that if a hurricane like storm was to come through, even one as powerful as Hurricane Katrina, the climbing tower would be left undamaged. We then went on to explain that all the equipment that we would use was specifically designed for climbing. The rope we used had enough strength to pick up a small car or elephant (around 2000 pounds). We went on and on about the safety precautions we had gone to. The truth of the matter was, and still is, to climb that tower is safer than getting in a car and driving to work. The fact was the tower was completely safe. It was the climber’s choice whether to believe it or not. There were so many times that climbers would get 6 feet up the 40 foot tower and freeze. They did not have faith that the rope and the harnesses and all the other safety equipment would keep them from harm. Because of their unbelief they froze.

True faith is always followed with belief, a response.  If you really believe you can fly with that pair of fake wings then you will give it a shot even though what you believe is not true(as you would soon find out).  However, no matter how obvious a fact or truth is, it does not mean that we believe what is known to be true and as a result our lack of faith will be reflected by inaction.

Let me give you an example.  I imagine most readers are, at this point, sitting on a chair or perhaps laying back on their sofa.  Before you sat down did you examine the structural integrity of the object you were about to intrust your life with?  Did you carefully examine each joint for cracks or any sign of weakness or fatigue?  Perhaps you picked up the chair, if it was light enough, and slammed it down on the ground a few times to see if it could really take a beating?  And maybe, just maybe, you carefully measured out your equivalent weight and eased it on the chair to see if the chair could really support your weight.  Of course not!  Your faith that the chair can support your weight is reflected by your action of belief to sit down in the chair.

So what does all this mean for me?  This draws me to question what I have faith in.  Is what I have faith in worthy of the honour?  Is it truth?  Can I sit back on it with confidence as you now sit in your chair?  Or is it an unfounded belief?  As I go to sit back on that proverbial chair will I find myself falling?  Time to examine and test whether what I have faith in, what I believe to be true, is really true at all.

What makes a good blog anyways?

Today as I was advocating the beginnings of my first blog to my family around the kitchen table I encounter an interesting question.  “Why should I read your blog?”  Worthwhile question to be sure.  But how could I answer their question if I was not even sure of the answer for myself never mind a host of other questions.  What will this blog be about?  What is the purpose, the intent, the goal?  Or is there one?  Will it just be a little insight to the thoughts and ponderings of yours truly or have common content and theme?  What makes a good blog good anyways?  These are some of the questions that began to whirl through my mind.

It sounds mundane and stereotypical but my intent is to do a bit of all of this.  I will not be purposefully advertising a specific overall theme, but as you get to know me and I share my thoughts one may become evident.  As you read it is my hope that you would get insight into what is running through my mind.  As I continue to share, more common strains, ideas, and themes may come through.  Not intentionally, but as a result of simply who I am.  Hopefully that is at least in some regard interesting.  Insight into the life of Matthew Walton as he breaks the mold he has found himself in.

Does that make for a good blog?  One worth reading?  Well… I guess we will find out!

As to the Title…

As I sat watching a hockey game today, a thought was introduced to me by my brother.  Blogging.  I hadn’t considered it previously.  As I considered what to name the blog the first thing I recognized was that it was going to take more thought and time than I expected to maintain a blog.  Although watching a hockey game didn’t help my thoughtfulness, I’m sure it took me a good 2 hours to decide on a blog title. 

Breaking the Mold – First off I must clear up the word Mold.  A mold is ‘a distinctive form in which a thing is made or a container into which liquid is poured to create a give shape when it hardens’.  I don’t think I need to clear up the definition of the preceding two words.

Let me give you a scenario.  There is this small town where everyone knows everyone.  They know if you are in the cool or not so cool group and you know absolutely everyone your age.  You lived from the moment you were born until moving away three years ago. Over the past three years away from home you have experienced and learned things, made friends and contacts and various other things.  All in all you lived in a very different manner than you did in that small town you grew up in those many years.  Then you come back.  What you didn’t realize in the three years you spent away is immediately apparent.  You’ve changed.  The person you were and the person you now are are very, very different.  This person is me.

I now find myself back in this place that molded me for the first 18 years of my life.  I have changed.  The problem is, the mold hasn’t.  The people I had known for so long haven’t changed and they think the same should be true with me too.  I now find myself surrounded by places, people and circumstances that are trying to force me back into the shape of this mold I once fit so well.  People expect me to be unaltered and changeless.  Cookie cutter like.  All I am left to do is to break this ruthless, old mold.