I once sponsored and attended a luncheon at which our company rolled out the results of a “feasibility study” which examined ten options for economic development in a small Peruvian community near our mineral exploration efforts. We hoped that the mayor and his council, after hearing the results of the study, would choose the option they wished to follow and to which we had committed financial aid. The lunch was enjoyable but the mayor’s speech following was what might be called a downer. He slammed the industry in general and our company in particular and categorically refused to receive the consultant’s report.
In his defense, it was an election year and he had to distance himself from us in order to prevent an attack from the left. It was an early form of wokism and we were being cancelled. It was disconcerting to hear him accuse of us of base, moral turpitude and when he finished his diatribe and went for a second helping of our dessert, I turned to the consultant who had managed the project and opined that this was an investment that was unlikely to bear much fruit. He looked at me in surprise and said,
“No! We have him right where we want him!”
Hi optimism was so incongruous with the circumstances that I had to laugh. The luncheon did serve as an early warning of the threats to come and we were ready when our geologists were kidnapped (reference previous substack) so it wasn’t a complete write-off.
At the lowest point during the kidnapping event, I thought about a conversation between Ulysses Grant and Tecumseh Sherman at the close of the first day of fighting at the Battle of Shiloh. Grant’s army had suffered an enormous defeat with a dreadful loss of life and when Sherman pointed out the disastrous nature of the day’s events, Grant simply grunted,
“Yup. Get ‘em tomorrow though.”
I have needed that kind of optimism then and since. (If it looks like a duck)
I was reminded of this need during the dark days of covid. Previous concepts of freedom had been completely upended. The country was locked down and freedom of movement was conditional upon mandated injections. Those who supported the mandates demanded compliance from those who didn’t support the mandates. We were no longer in Kansas. (History is dead; Long live history!) Relief came in the form of the trucker protest which moved me from pessimistic despair to optimistic relief.
On this paschal weekend, the absence of truth telling on multiple fronts is leading to more confusion and despair. I found today’s entry from The Free Press (Consider subscribing to this substack if only for the TGIF entries!) to be instructive.
The author cites a Wall Street Journal poll on social trends that identifies a lot of reasons for pessimism. Not only are we not in Kansas but it seems we have little hope for ever going back.
An incoherent economy, mass killings, over-sexualization of children, girls being denied a shot at the medals by men who seem to be confused about the nature of their sexuality… It makes one want to shout out with the Apostle Paul,
“As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”
But, in truth, we are experiencing issues that have no stale date and have been with us for a very long time. Writing seven hundred years before Jesus was born, Isaiah passed on a message from God,
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
In describing his movement to faith, Alexander Solzhenitsyn described the Christians in his Gulag work camp as being impressive for their optimism and happiness in the most dire of circumstances. He wanted what they had and, faced with absolute Evil, he knew there must then be a source of absolute Good. And we think we have it bad.
Many of the early Christians were noted by secular officials for their optimism as they faced the lions. Blandina, the Roman slave from Lyons, was tortured for three weeks before she had to be killed with a knife thus embarrassing her tormenters with her bravery. And we think we have it bad.
This weekend, Christians celebrate two very short sentences which created a major hinge point in the history of mankind.
“It is finished.” and “He is risen.”
These statements bookend the moment of Jesus’ death and His subsequent resurrection. For the Christian, they are the source of ageless hope and optimism. All of us are where we are in the year 2023 because of the events on the hill called Calvary. There is no promise of a Rose Garden in either sentence but there is an affirmation that optimism is entirely warranted and that pessimism died on that cross so many years ago.
For those readers who are Christians, now is the time to replace the gloom and confusion of our day with the renewed optimism of a cheerful warrior. It is time to recognize anew, in the triumphant light of His resurrection, the cosmic significance that all things are finished.
For those readers who are not Christians, this might be a good time to consider the historical claims of this man Jesus who, in rising from the dead, claimed equality with God. It is a big claim that restricts the options to either, “Jesus is an idiot” or “Jesus is God.”
As for me,
He is risen!,
I am optimistic,
and I wish you the happiest of Easters.
He is risen, indeed. And that makes all the difference. My hope is in Jesus.