Hope and “Tragic Optimism”: An Advent Challenge

In 1949, during the fallout of the indescribable horrors of World War II, Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and psychologist, coined the term, “tragic optimism” to describe a way to find meaning and hope in times when hope is blurred by seemingly greater power and oppression. Frankl maintained that there are three tragedies every human faces. First, we experience pain because we are bone and flesh. Guilt is the second tragedy we encounter when things do not go our way after using our freedom to make certain choices. The third tragedy is loss, or the reality that everything we love or cherish is impermanent, mortal.

From these tragedies, Frankl determined, if one acknowledges them and accepts that life will contain hardship and hurt but one can move forward with a positive attitude, one is engaged in “tragic optimism,” the result of which is renewed energy and creativity to take on whatever tragedy has befallen us. 

Author Brad Stuhlberg applied Frankl’s term in a recent New York Times article (NYT, December 1, 2024, p. 12). Stuhlberg described his community in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene decimated most of it leaving only the residents to care for each other sharing precious water for drinking and food from whatever cupboards still had some and helping retrieve power sources from batteries and cranky generators. Stuhlberg’s neighbors and wider community were without the crucial life-giving necessities, but they rallied on porches and muddy yards that hadn’t washed away to decide how to help each other and how to find those who were missing or were out of reach for immediate aid. For Stuhlberg, this was “tragic optimism” in action. The people were literally marooned until agents of relief could get to them. They had only each other.

Frankl’s concept is born of hope, a virtue much needed following the recent hurricanes and natural disasters. According to Stuhlberg, Frankl claimed, consistently, that hope is needed in the direst circumstances in order to overcome any tragedy; that is why he called it “tragic optimism.”

My congregation chose hope as one of the virtues we should meditate on and put into action this Advent. Many of us, according to Stuhlberg, are a bit bereft of hope lately especially following the national election. Sociologists are already reporting intense fear among our fellow citizens who await the appointments of unfavorable cabinet members and anticipate revenge against innocent government officials and journalists who were just ‘doing their jobs.’ We know we must be vigilant to assure true democracy now and we must do it with hope.

Sister Olga Shapoval is a Ukrainian nun who ministers in Kyiv, Ukraine and has observed the waning of “hope in our hearts that this nightmare would end sooner or later.” Sister Olga lives in a district where the largest number of missiles explode nightly forcing her to hide between the walls or corridor of the bathroom, and sometimes to spend the night in the subway. Describing the bombing of a children’s hospital 500 meters from her place of work, she writes, “You can’t get used to something like this.”

To rekindle hope in her spiritual life, Sister Olga made a retreat this summer by joining pilgrims who were making the famous hike to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. James. She hiked 19 hours a day in torturous heat and frigid nights during the long journey. She is an example of someone who faces tragedy every day and sought a way to address “tragic optimism.”

She folded into her prayer the needs of her country, her people, the military, the medical providers, the children. Every step embedded an intention of love for someone. The experience helped her clear her heart and mind to return to Ukraine, but she did so with renewed hope. “Although I would soon leave to return to the harshness of war, I was filled with hope that God would surely ignite his “campus stellae (field of stars) over Ukraine.” 

Reflection

Like all virtues, hope is not passive. It requires generous action on our part starting with prayer and then doing something to show that life will get better, or the human spirit will imbibe joy. A person of hope faces the challenging circumstances, laces up the boots, stiffens the back, and walks forward saying, ‘we can do this. We will do this.’ A person of hope does not flinch at the naysayers. In fact, a person of hope invites the naysayers along. 

Advent is a season of hope. The long, demanding journey of the Chosen People had finally settled into a modest rectangle bounded by the 31^st and 33^rd parallels of north longitude, the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land from which the Messiah would come, the land we call Palestine today. Imagine the hope that prophets and the leaders of these traveling people had provided when life became almost unbearable along the way. 

I ask to be a hopeful person this Advent. I ask to put into practice the belief that God wants what is best for all his people and I resolve to work toward it. I want to apply Frankl’s “tragic optimism” wherever I see the need for hope. This means to admit where and what the problem is: pain, guilt, or loss and then to do something to help others through it. Add to this the prayer I need to make to stir hope within myself as I make the effort to bring it to the problem.

Maybe the quiet time you are making these days will inspire you on how to bring hope to our broken world.

Each of you, my readers, and Anonymous Angels, are so fondly included in my prayer. Be of joy and hope as you continue your Advent journey.