Raising Kids With Character

The ability to hope

In 1965 the Catholic philosopher, Dietrich von Hildebrand, wrote a book called The Art of Living which outlined seven “cardinal virtues” that are necessary to live a grounded life. In 1994 his wife, Alice von Hildebrand, added an eighth chapter bringing the total of cardinal virtues up to eight.

These virtues, although presented in a spiritual way, are good virtues regardless of any particular worldview, and should our kids learn them, will guide our children through life with confidence in a world in which assured security seems to be less and less probable. These are short summaries of the von Hildebrand’s wonderful chapters and don’t do them intellectual justice, however if applied, I know will change the lives of you and your children.

Virtue number 8: The ability to hope

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. ~ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl.

I think people see me as a pessimist. Now, I don’t see myself as pessimist, I think I’m more of a realist. But being perceived as a pessimist has its advantages because wise people know that calling a pessimist a pessimist is just a recipe for a bad, depressing evening. Of course, I’m not a pessimist I’m a realist, and in our current climate, reality looks pretty awful.

You know what demographic is hopelessly optimistic? Children. Children are hard-wired for hope. Children see the NHL potential in every game of road hockey. They see the moon and just know they will go there one day. They fight fires with garden hoses, tackle bad guys that look a lot like their pet dog and dance barefoot in the grass in front of an audience of one thousand adoring dandelions.

When we are talking about the virtue of hope, it is us adults who must turn to our children to teach us. And woe to the grown-up who robs a child of hope, even the Bible wards off crass adults who would harm the hope of a little child (“…it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea!” Oh my.) The adult bent on the destruction of hope need only bide his time and watch as time erodes the utopian dreams of youth away.

I don’t think I was a particularly optimistic kid. I wonder if I wasn’t a rather melancholy child, (maybe just moody), but what hope I had, took a beating in jr. high. Those halls marked a dark time for me, perhaps not darker than they are for most, but when in it, one tends to think the darkest dark is the dark you are living. I was bullied and had few really solid friendships and so my world felt increasingly unsafe. Fortunately, I had a wonderful family, beautiful grandparents, allies in my art teacher (and other teachers as well) and I could escape into my room to play my guitar or paint. Music and art and family are probably what kept me from slipping into unescapable depression.

Still, I work hard to regain the hope that I had as a young child; but the reward is worth the effort. The difference, in my realistic worldview, is that I have come to understand that hope must be anchored in an object, and the greater that object, the greater the potential hope quotient.

For example, as a child, hope, as lovely as it is, is really quite hollow. As adults we chuckle and know that few are the astronauts and professional athletes, what is a child’s hope actually in? Their ability? Their dreams? What if life robs them of mobility because of sickness or injury? Then hope quickly fades. So, the greater the object of our hope, the greater is the quality of that hope.

And yet as hollow as it is, hollow hope is still better than no hope! Victor Frankl, the psychologist and holocaust survivor in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, that the Jews who lost hope in concentration camps quickly succumbed to sickness and death and that those who kept hope alive, regardless of the probability of their dreams, were more able to weather that desperate day and time.

This is the power of hope.

But the fact remains, the greater the object of our hope, the greater is the quality of our hope. Think about it for a minute. Marriage offers greater hope than mere friendship because a marriage relationship is enshrouded in a covenantal agreement, therefore making it more robust! Dogs offer greater hope than cats because dogs reciprocate your affection with loyalty. (Clearly cat lovers are about to flood my inbox. I’m joking… mostly.) Dreaming to accomplish something just beyond our natural abilities provides greater hope than unrealistic and improbable dreams of celebrity because it is actually attainable, yet will still stretch our abilities.

However, marriages fail and spouses eventually die, some far too soon, pets are fickle, everyone knows that, and natural abilities are extremely fragile in a physically violent world. Muscles atrophy, wealth depletes, intellect wanes and hope wilts like autumn flowers in a winter snow.

So what is the greatest object of hope that is available?

St. Anselm defined “God” as the greatest conceivable Being and added that if you could think of something greater than that, then that would be God. If it is true that God is the greatest conceivable being, then it would make sense that whatever we make our “god” should be the greatest object in which we can put our hope.

If you are your own god, then I would argue that your hope is as unstable as your health and wellbeing. If humankind’s innate goodness is your god, I suspect you aren’t watching the news. (Shoot, there’s that realism again.) But if the object of your hope is a who is God infinitely powerful, immaterial, eternal, just, loving and holy (by which I mean the source of all goodness), then your hope is the greatest conceivable hope in the world.

I like the sound of that.

And here the children have us beat again. Children believe in God and it’s true that in many ways it is a similar belief as their dream to go to the moon and play in the NBA, but in other ways, it reveals a purity and inner security that, quite frankly, I desire more of as an adult.

If inner security comes from these eight virtues, and the quality of these virtues, then those who hope in the greatest conceivable being, and not blindly I might add, will experience the greatest conceivable inner security available to human beings. I want that for myself, but even more so for the precious children in my home.

At very least, the development of these virtues, and the exploration of God as the greatest conceivable being is a worthy pursuit with potentially eternal significance.