Christian Living

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Optimism About Life And Living In 2005—Why Not?
©
by

Stephen A. Peterson


My Wife, friends and associates constantly tell me that I’m an optimist. “Stevie, you’re too much of an optimist.” Is what my brother, Marty, told me recently as we chatted on the telephone as he drove his commercial truck towards New York state. “If you were hit by a baseball bat,” one of my teen clients told me, “you’d probably be thinking of how to laugh it off the way Curley of the three Stooges did.”

I am, I admit, an optimist. That said, my optimism is as such that it is not clouded or blurred by reality. I know the difficulties, horrors and challenges of life. I have experienced my share of them. I also refuse to regard the human condition as going to hell in a hand basket and doomed. True, we are witnessing a great deal of evil propagated by a few evil people. True, we are all going to experience death in one of its thousands of forms. True, life on the planet earth is constantly changing. To me there are a set of facts, situations to be accepted courageously and with God in our hearts and minds. The questions are—What can we do, and what ought we to do, while we are yet alive?

Yes, I am optimistic in the sense that I believe it is possible to better our own lives and, in a general way, humanity. In spite of all of the evil we see, the growth of secularism in the United States over the past seventy years, I believe that humankind has made tremendous progress in identifying and bringing to the table a multitude of social, political and theological issues never before identified and discussed. Humankind over the last one hundred years, has invented more in that period of time than the nineteen previous centuries of the Christian era. The pessimist generally reply: “Yes, but these inventions of the twentieth century are used only for war, destruction of the environment, and are leading humankind on the road to total destruction.”

I do not believe their evaluation is necessarily so. It depends upon ourselves and that we, as humans, do. In spite of the environmentalist line, humankind does not ultimately have the power to completely do ourselves in. My optimism is largely a product of my faith in God, the knowledge that Christian principles are still the basis of the American culture and experience and that Christianity is experiencing its wake up call as secularism, atheism and humanism try its best to eliminate its presence. I know that humanity based on solid Christian principles has had twenty centuries of challenges and still flourishes. So the secularists, atheists and humanists really have an uphill climb to rid the American society of the culture of God.

My reaction to a circumstance is to look at it for what good there may be in the human inventive experience rather than what evil it may bring. I believe my response to humanity has its basis in my childhood, having had a Catholic education in my formative years and having lived through the transition from a segregated society to one of social possibility and opportunity.

In my humble opinion, I had very good parents of Native American and African ancestry. Although my parents accepted corporal punishment for wrong behavior, they also implemented a mentoring program that believed that someday American justice will reign supreme because this is a Christian nation based on Christian principles. "Soon Christianity would bring fairness, opportunity and advancement to us and our peoples," my parents repeated stated. "You must be prepared to step up."

Catholic education as a child through my high school years has encouraged me to seek God, truth and human justice. Catholic education might have marred my understanding of humanity and its harshness if it was not for my high school teachers at Scecina Memorial High School, especially a nun, Sister Rita Clare, the greatest of my teachers. In discussing my point of view about this nun with past students and colleagues, she is also thought to have been blinded by optimism and too overly disciplined. I disagree.

Because I was deficient as a writer, this nun helped me to seek God more fervently, truth, and human social justice through the discipline of writing and logical thinking. She also knowingly infused a sense of optimism as a standard. “Pessimism cannot or must not be justified,” she would say. “For despair engenders misfortune and failure.” If I believe that I am going to fail, I will fail before I begin. If I believe that there is nothing I can do about my country’s affairs, then there is nothing I will do or can do. In the human family I make the fair weather and the tempest, primarily within myself with the help of God. Pessimism is contagious. If I believe my neighbor to be dishonest and show my distrust, I make her/him distrustful and dishonest.

“Look here,” says the Pessimist. “Do you really believe in God, truth, and justice? Hasn’t it brought you some frightful disappointments in this life?” Yes, I confess that I have had some disappointments in my life. Living in a deeply segregated society for the first 30 years of life, watching secularists, atheists and bigots attempt to erode liberty under the guise of freedom and justice for all, the growth of socialism in the United States as the answer to the ills in this country, has given me strong reason for doubting the perfection of humankind as humanist proclaim.

But after all, I have always known that evil, wicked, stupid people existed. I have also always known that in times of dissent and change some people can become evil, stupid and bestial calling it reasonable under the cover of being for the common good. My optimism consisted, and will continue to consist of this: Each individual can influence events and even if we must suffer misfortune we CAN overcome it by our manner of enduring it.

My recipe is this:

1. To give credence and praise to the existence and presence of Almighty God;

2. Identify, advocate against and avoid the beliefs, philosophies and actions of the wicked;

3. Identify, display and rejoice in good;

4. Endure but fight evil with every energy I have;

5. Not to worry about what God will do about wickedness and those who represent evil.

My recipe has done me well for more than five decades. It will do so for
whatever time remains.

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