What does hope consist in?
Hope must necessarily lie in the preservation of good but is more keenly needed and felt in respect of what is wrong.
Well, what is wrong?
- Spiritual wrongness: pride, the having of self as the centre or main objective of my life or of some part thereof, and the other flaws that stem from living such a life, based on the twin follies of individualism and materialism.
- Mental and emotional wrongness: stemming from naivety, ignorance, distorted ways of perceiving, interpreting, and thinking, and psychological maladjustment, all compounded by spiritual wrongness.
- Social wrongness: relationships distorted by grievance, unamended harms to others, and a failure to discern and take up one's right role in family, social, and work settings.
- Corporate wrongness: the wrongness subsisting at the level of the community, society, and civilisation.
- Eternal wrongness: essentially, the state of my soul and the attendant gloom, fear, or cynicism about the existence or fate of my spirit, separately from my fate in this particular realm.
Let's get a couple of these out of the way: the eternal wrongness must be dealt with by the individual in accordance with their faith, if any. If none, they must muddle through with the sense that death is final to the soul as well as to the body. In the former case, I can say nothing that improves on, supersedes, or substitutes for the guidance of the wise of the faith in question. In the latter case, I can say nothing, for I was unable to persist with that philosophy, not only because it is an intolerable doctrine of despair but because reason, to me, reveals its fallacy.
Regarding corporate wrongness. The universe will eventually wind down. The sun will burn out. The planet will cool. Mankind is not forever. Mankind is perhaps not for long. Maybe mankind will reach some civilisational apotheosis, some heaven on earth, some messianic age; maybe the fall is currently accelerating towards terminal velocity. Maybe there'll be, as there appears to have been to date, an unfathomable muddle of the excellent, the good, the bad, and outright horror. In any case, hope in this regard is very clearly a risky horse to bet on, both at the level of humanity and at the level of one's own timeline within it.
The problem, also, with corporate wrongness is that it is not a wrongness in itself but a function of 1., 2., and 3. The whole is built up from the parts, and trends or patterns evident when panning back are revealed to have their roots in the individual maladjustments: spiritual, mental, emotional, and social, of the human atoms. Any attempt to resolve corporate wrongness will fail unless change is brought about at the levels of 1., 2., and 3. If the window is wide open, turning on the heat won't produce lasting change.
To apply this at the level of AA, any attempt to change a group or the fellowship more broadly, at local or lower level, will fail without change at the level of 1., 2., and 3. This is why the saving and redirection of individuals by God is the only worthwhile endeavour to help bring about. Do-gooders, busybodies, rule-writers, and enforcers at the material level do little lasting good and usually compound whatever problems they descend on to solve.
Where does hope reside?
Very simply, attending to the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts in one's own life brings about transformation. This may or may not produce happy circumstances and worldly success. Some people who are very unwell live in enviable settings, achieve much, and are widely lauded. Some people who iron out their maladjustments and rely on God face persistent, grave difficulties. The external cannot be the measure and is certainly not what counts.
What counts is establishing right relation to God, which necessitates seeing oneself in one's rightful position in the universe and seeing oneself as one really is. This resets the displaced bone fragments and allows the fractures to heal. In consequence, right relations with others are established automatically, with a little orthotic guidance from the more experienced.
Hope, therefore, lies in the recognition that, sooner or later, 1., 2., and 3., can be solved. This resolution will usually result in a resolution of 5. Where does this leave 4.? A working relationship with God is a shield, perhaps the only shield more effective than denial, dissociation, and cheap optimism, against the vicissitudes, troubles, and challenges of the world. With God, I can appreciate all good things (for all good things are really Good things) and withstand all apparent bad, with poise, cheer, and utility. In this fortitude, the bad is turned to, and returned to, the Good.