This reflection on tradition and hope in the face of the loss of a people’s world of meaning gets, I believe, to a large part of our work today. How do we reach back when the context of anything we could put our hands on is gone?
The dilemma reminds me of Romeo’s lines at the outset of Act 2, right after he learns that his suddenly promising new world—Juliet’s home—has just as suddenly become a death trap:
“Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out."
How can we just run, or only run? His struggle to find a center reminds me of some Native American nations’ migrations, their search for their homes at the earth’s center.
I wasn’t aware of Radical Hope, and I look forward to reading it (as well as Antifragile and The Experience of God). I’ve been reading what I think is something similar: Damian Costello’s Black Elk: Colonialism And Lakota Catholicism. In it, Costello quotes O. Douglas Schwartz on the role of a holy man at the end of a known world:
“The holy man has a ‘vision’ of the world—its nature, its history and its destiny—and a sense of humanity’s place within that scheme. Through that vision, the holy man can hope to solve problems for which the tradition offers no ready-made solutions. The wicasa wakan is then the theoretician—the theologian—of the Plains religion.”
Your post also reminds me of Albert Schweitzer's understanding of mysticism. His version of Paul, who leads the church out of the senselessness of Jesus’ delayed parousia, seems similar to Costello’s Black Elk and Jonathan Lear’s Plenty Coups. Eric Voegelin’s concept of the philosopher (in Anamensis) comes to mind as well: someone who can show a community how to return to the ground of being when the foundations of common sense crumble.
You offer so much stunning language here— substantive, articulate, and hopeful (in the face of our culture’s increasingly mute and gabby despair). Just a sample of what I enjoy:
“Radical hope is not optimism but perseverance with imagination: the courage to live as if meaning still matters, even when it falls silent. Out of that silence, something new begins to speak.”
I love how you extend the essay’s themes through Romeo’s search for his “center,” the migrations of Native nations, and the wicasa wakan as visionary guide. Your weaving of Costello, Voegelin, and even Schweitzer deepens the question of who restores meaning when inherited worlds collapse. That image of the “holy man as theoretician” wonderfully echoes Plenty Coups.
Your reflection exemplifies what the essay hopes for: thought that listens before it speaks, imagination grounded in reverence.
You’ve added your own act of radical hope—continuing the conversation meaning was meant to sustain. - Thank you!
This reflection on tradition and hope in the face of the loss of a people’s world of meaning gets, I believe, to a large part of our work today. How do we reach back when the context of anything we could put our hands on is gone?
The dilemma reminds me of Romeo’s lines at the outset of Act 2, right after he learns that his suddenly promising new world—Juliet’s home—has just as suddenly become a death trap:
“Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out."
How can we just run, or only run? His struggle to find a center reminds me of some Native American nations’ migrations, their search for their homes at the earth’s center.
I wasn’t aware of Radical Hope, and I look forward to reading it (as well as Antifragile and The Experience of God). I’ve been reading what I think is something similar: Damian Costello’s Black Elk: Colonialism And Lakota Catholicism. In it, Costello quotes O. Douglas Schwartz on the role of a holy man at the end of a known world:
“The holy man has a ‘vision’ of the world—its nature, its history and its destiny—and a sense of humanity’s place within that scheme. Through that vision, the holy man can hope to solve problems for which the tradition offers no ready-made solutions. The wicasa wakan is then the theoretician—the theologian—of the Plains religion.”
Your post also reminds me of Albert Schweitzer's understanding of mysticism. His version of Paul, who leads the church out of the senselessness of Jesus’ delayed parousia, seems similar to Costello’s Black Elk and Jonathan Lear’s Plenty Coups. Eric Voegelin’s concept of the philosopher (in Anamensis) comes to mind as well: someone who can show a community how to return to the ground of being when the foundations of common sense crumble.
You offer so much stunning language here— substantive, articulate, and hopeful (in the face of our culture’s increasingly mute and gabby despair). Just a sample of what I enjoy:
“Radical hope is not optimism but perseverance with imagination: the courage to live as if meaning still matters, even when it falls silent. Out of that silence, something new begins to speak.”
Thank you for this work.
I love how you extend the essay’s themes through Romeo’s search for his “center,” the migrations of Native nations, and the wicasa wakan as visionary guide. Your weaving of Costello, Voegelin, and even Schweitzer deepens the question of who restores meaning when inherited worlds collapse. That image of the “holy man as theoretician” wonderfully echoes Plenty Coups.
Your reflection exemplifies what the essay hopes for: thought that listens before it speaks, imagination grounded in reverence.
You’ve added your own act of radical hope—continuing the conversation meaning was meant to sustain. - Thank you!