In the movie The Matrix: Reloaded (2003), the character dubbed “The Architect” says the following to Neo when it becomes clear that Neo is about to make a seemingly unrealistic choice in hopes of saving the woman he loves, Trinity, from imminent and fatal danger:

“Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.”

My previous post on hope got me thinking more about the wisdom of hope. Proverbs 13:12 casts hope within the framework of wisdom, and proverbs as a genre are very compressed, inviting readers to sit awhile and unpack the meanings and lessons on offer.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 NRSV

Implied in this proverb, it is wise to accept that sometimes hopes go unfulfilled, and sometimes they come to fruition. This is life. It is what it is. There is not necessarily anything wrong with the world just because our own particular hopes get delayed or destroyed, no matter how devastated we may feel in response. It is also wise to welcome our heart-sick responses. Emotional response is not necessarily unwise.

But all of this has to do with how we handle the hopes we already have. If The Architect of The Matrix is right, however, then perhaps we should not let ourselves hope at all. Maybe hope is a delusion. Yes, it gives us uncanny strength, but it might also blind and weaken us, driving us to spend our powers on things for which we cannot guarantee the outcomes. Better to play it safe and conservative, to focus on outcomes we can predict, control, and guarantee.

As an aside — or perhaps not — I am reminded here of the well known “Serenity Prayer”: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I pray this prayer often.

But might it be wise to hope?

Perhaps it is wise to perceive that the future is open before us — to a certain degree, at least — and that there is no guarantee that bad things are going to happen. Next, our world seems highly contingent. Perhaps, then, it is wise to recall that each action we take may alter the choices that others make, and that therefore one deliberate good act can ripple outward into the future to elicit other good things.

Perhaps it is wise to enact the belief that God is living and active, and that God may choose to be involved in our lives in a way that opens up new possibilities. That is, there might be more than just human players involved in the web of actions that ripple through our world.

Perhaps it is wise to guard one’s emotions from giving the victory to despair and despondency (both of which I have felt over and over again, by the way). Despair and despondency demotivate and de-energize us, and threaten to make us passive and acquiescent, and maybe even slothful. (The biblical proverbs have a thing or two to say about slothfulness.) Some things in our world are not as they should be, and it will take active, non-accepting, and resolved energies to make changes for the better. We just cannot achieve justice without hope.

Perhaps it is wise to see to it that we have friends in our lives who promote hope in us. I tend to be a cynic by nature; if I only welcome my fellow cynics as friends, I might be a fool who engages in confirmation bias. (Might as well only have friends in our lives who are of our political persuasion, right?) It’s easy to feel right when we’re surrounded by “Yes” people: people who share our attitudes and beliefs already. Thus, it is hard to give hope a chance if no one else around us does. (As a corollary, it might be you who is the hope-bringing friend for someone else, so you might be called upon to be the encourager.)

More could be said, no doubt. But I end by returning to The Matrix. As it turned out, Neo acted in hope, and it gave him the strength to save Trinity, despite The Architect’s assurances that Neo would fail. The Architect, whose eloquent vocabulary suggested intelligence and wisdom, wound up being exposed as a fool. Neo took a chance with hope. It was wise that he did.