On Memories and Hopes

  

An Old Man’s Hope

            I am an old man, so I think about the past a lot.  I remember scenes and images from my youth: walking up a hill in East Wenatchee when I was seven, playing football in a cow pasture when I was twelve.  I locate events: “She was born in 1947, so she would have been 18 at the beginning of 1966.”

            For what should an old man hope?

            Young men hope—they look forward to milestones like finishing school, marriage, becoming a father, or career success.  The good things they desire are possible because they can reasonably expect to live decades more.  By contrast, old men remember.  They may (or may not) have accomplished the things for which they hoped, but they don’t hope any longer.

            This contrast between youth and old age is often attributed to Aristotle, though I can’t find the quote this morning, not even with the aid of google and the Internet.  It is an instructive comparison, because it illustrates how hope is a forward-looking virtue.  Hope desires something in the future.  We might wish that history was different, but we can’t hope that it was different.  The Mariners had a wonderful season in 2001, but they did not make it to the World Series.

            I published Understanding Hope in 2022, having written dozens of essays on topics related to hope beginning in 2014, the year I turned 60.  Thus, my philosophical explorations of hope can be located in my middle age years. 

(I’ve often joked that we are young until 35, middle-aged until 70, and old after that.  I referred to myself as “almost old” when I was still 69.  Few people find humor in the joke, but Hank Helsabeck liked it.)

Linking hope with youth and memory with age would fit Aristotle, who built his philosophy on observation.  (Remember Raphael’s School of Athens, which pictures Plato pointing up—to the realm of the forms, we imagine—and Aristotle motioning down—showing that wisdom is found in the observable world.)  Given a naturalistic take on the world, we can all understand Aristotle’s epigram, if he really said it.  Death brings an end to our projects, leaving nothing to hope for.  Young men still have time, so they can hope.

Now that I am old, do I still hope?  I might hope that some novel I write will find readers.  I do hope that my occasional sermons will help listeners grow in love and discipleship.  In this life, I hope to see intimations of the kingdom of God.  Beyond this life, I hope for resurrection.  I hope to grow forever in the knowledge of God and to participate in the eternal community, Jesus’ people.

It’s easy to type the words, but the ideas are big.  To be God’s friend, to be part of the body.  According to the New Testament, these things are true right now.  I am already a friend of God, and I am already a member of Christ’s body.  They are already true, yet I hope that they will be “truer” in the resurrection.

 

A Tale of Two Presidents

 

Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump

            Four days ago, President Trump ordered the US military to execute a plan, months in the making, to capture Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro.  From Trump’s point of view, the operation succeeded wonderfully.  Maduro and Flores were captured and taken to New York, where they appeared in court yesterday, without any fatalities among the US soldiers, airmen or sailors.  At least 50—probably more than 60—Venezuelan and Cuban fighters were killed.

            It’s significant that many of the dead were Cubans.  Apparently, the Venezuelan military and security forces are so weak/disorganized that Maduro had to rely on Cuban security personnel.  This is only one indicator of Maduro’s incompetence.

            Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.  But the Venezuelan oil industry is a shambles, partly because of US sanctions but largely because of top-down mismanagement.  Poverty in Venezuela is so bad that as much as a fifth of the population has fled the country in the last two decades, most of them heading for the United States.  Trump’s anti-immigrant policies are aimed at many refugee groups, Venezuelans among them.

            Maduro’s official title, which he reiterated in court yesterday, is “President” of Venezuela.  In reality, he was a dictator, propped up by the military and security personnel (many of them from Cuba), and money from China.  By all outside accounts, Maduro lost the most recent election resoundingly, but the apparatus of the state, including captive “news” media, proclaimed him the victor.  His opponents fled the country to avoid imprisonment.

            Under Hugo Chavez (president before Maduro) and Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has become a textbook example of state-run industrial failure, leading to poverty and repression.  Understandably, then, many Venezuelan expatriates rejoiced at the news of his fall.  But it’s not at all clear what Venezuela’s future will be.

 Trump says the US will “run” Venezuela, US oil companies will invest heavily in the country, and prosperity will return.  The result, according to Trump: profits for the oil companies and a better standard of life for Venezuelans.  That, I suppose, is possible.  But all the machinery of the state is still what it was a month ago.  Will the people who have administered Maduro’s policies (judges, military and security forces, legislators, bureaucrats at all levels) suddenly change their ways?  What foreign companies, even oil giants, will invest in Venezuela if they don’t?

Trump’s official excuse for taking Maduro is the accusation that Maduro aided and abetted drug cartels which made “war” on the US.  So, depending on the day or hour, Trump’s defense of his decision vacillates: on the one hand, it was just a law enforcement raid in which the US military helped arrest an accused criminal; on the other hand, it was a wartime attack against an invading force.  The latter reasoning was prominent in the months leading up to Maduro’s capture, as Trump and his enablers justified deadly attacks on alleged drug boats.  It’s okay, apparently, to kill enemy soldiers/sailors in a time of war.  You don’t have to prove anything or give the enemy a chance to defend himself in court.  Just kill him.  Now that Maduro and Flores are in US custody, the reasoning switches.  They are international criminals. 

Of course, Trump could claim that both reasons apply.  Maduro is both a criminal and an enemy combatant.  But if that’s the case, why didn’t we just kill him?  Need I point out that Maduro is wealthy?  Two months ago, Trump pardoned the ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of directing one of the biggest and most vicious drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.  My advice to Maduro and Flores: suck up to Trump.  Don’t protest your prison sentence.  Be quiet.  You may never get to rule Venezuela again, but you can get out of prison before Trump’s term ends.