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Hillary Says Scripture Says

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By John Hancock

From the stump, Hillary said this week to a Black church in Florida,“Scripture tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.”

I think this is a harmful theory.  It perpetuates a “one-down” self-identity.

Suffering tests patience and character.  It doesn’t train it.  Looking back at my troubles, I can give thanks for the learning, but rejoicing seems to me like an unreasonable expectation.

For each of us to go on living, misfortune requires an endurance response.  Or we give in and give up.

In an ancient world of conformity, bad health, brief lifetimes, little food, no personal independence, and a tiny community, the admonition to endure your suffering was leaderly encouragement simply to stay in line until the heavenly reward.  People were enslaved in part by big promises of better times to come, with very little evidence to prove it.

Character development is informed by suffering, and by dozens of other types of experience.  But there is no direct link between being a better person and how many travails you’re undergone.  Think of the people you know.  Some sufferers are continuing wrecks, and some illustrate good character in spite of what seems like their smooth sailing.

John Wooden, famous basketball coach at UCLA, said, “sports don’t build character, they reveal it.”

Hillary is parroting the Sunday School lesson from her childhood.  It is not a constructive or progressive message.  Endurance may be aided by character, but it doesn’t lead to it.

I think hope is most genuine when it’s accompanied by action–at least a starting plan for something constructive, or a next-time different response to recurring suffering.

Suffering is a training opportunity.  Our response is what enables new thinking and doing.  That’s the hope I have—that my actions contribute to what happens next.  I’m not powerless.  My hope is a blend of what spirit may provide and what I choose to do next.  Character is the style, tools and experience I use to influence what happens next to me.

This blend of hope and action is a fluid personal choice for each of us, every day, whatever the meta-message of our faith or philosophy.

John Hancock
John Hancock
John Hancock had a first career as a symphony orchestra musician and was a faculty member at University of Michigan. He has advanced degrees in music performance from Boston University and U.M. Arts management was his way of problem-solving and expanding the public participation. He was orchestra manager of the Toledo Symphony, executive director of the Spokane Symphony and the Pasadena Pops and chief operating officer of the Milwaukee Symphony. Currently he’s an Eagle Scout, a Rotarian, a liberal libertarian of an Iowa small-town self-sufficiency and was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. A childhood Methodist, he now instead pursues ideas of commonality among religions and philosophies. Volunteerism in civic, political and social services work draws him to town from his forest home outside Spokane. Since 2006, his Deep Creek Consulting has aided non-profit organizations in grantwriting and strengthbuilding.

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