Less-Than-Great Expectations*

In a wonderful turn of the phrase borrowed from Dickens, Maureen Corrigan deftly puts her finger to the pulse not only of the landscape of the book she’s reviewing, but also, I think, of the western ‘disease’ of our time:  malaise.

From Wikimedia Commons

Malaise, “an indefinite feeling of debility or lack of health . . . a vague sense of mental or moral ill- being . . .”  Merriam-Webster online dictionary  The malaise trap (interestingly named for the last name of the man who invented it rather than the condition) illustrates the state quite well if a degree of anthropomorphism is allowed: insects are drawn into a trap that funnels them into the direction of their certain death.  Wikipedia That’s how it is with malaise: it tricks us into the deceptively attractive idea of inevitability – a fatalism of mood – which in its cruel irony, creates the very inevitability which would otherwise have not existed.  Because we believe we are done for, we march resolutely in the direction of surrender – surrender to boredom, to unease, to being less than we were created to be, to expecting less of ourselves because life has disappointed, let us down, somehow.

As my own life and work are dedicated to God and focused on the church, I tend to hone in on those opining on the life or lack thereof in communities of faith.  But the overall sense of something missing, that vague sense of ill-being, applies, I think, to our society as a whole in these United States in particular.

Frankly, it puzzles me – this sense of something not-quite-right.  Perhaps more accurately, I am puzzled by the various cause claims bandied about.

One bromide has it that in the past, each generation could look forward to having it (however ‘it’ may be defined) better than the preceding ages, but there is a sea change in the land and continued eternal prosperity is no longer on the horizon.  It is the descriptor of unmet expectations.

I feel as if I didn’t get the memo.

Of course I know that my parents hoped that my life would be easier than theirs, shaped as they were by the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the riots on the streets of the 1960's that so transfixed me and alarmed them.

And truthfully, my life has been easier than theirs.  But I never felt as if it should be.  That my circumstances thus far have been less challenging than my parents’ is a matter for gratitude, but not entitlement.   It was never a promise that they or anyone else made to me that it should be so.

Maybe it’s a product of geographic culture: being a West Virginian means, among other things, that you’re seldom surprised by the cruel vagaries of life.  And perhaps that simple recognition forms my faith as well: the prosperity Gospel never held any appeal for me.  It just rings false – false to experience as well as to scriptural witness.

And maybe it’s about the focus as well as the source of our expectations: if God, rather than a great job or an easy life is my focus, everything else shifts into a very different perspective.

With God, my expectations are very great.  But that has little, if anything, to do with my life circumstances.  Job is the rule rather than the exception.

That being said, I am truly a woman of great expectations: the expectation that my life matters . . . that wonder and beauty are gifts to be treasured and also enjoyed . . . that no one takes anything from me as it was never mine nor theirs in the first place . . . that work is often its own reward . . . that the fact that my footprints will someday disappear from this world is a triumph of life, not a tragedy . . . that maybe, just maybe, my greatest gift to the generations is not to insist on being remembered in perpetuity, but to make room for them by getting out of the way . . . thus I can enjoy what is before me now – right now – because I know it will not last . . . and maybe that is as it should be.


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*Title ‘Less-than-great expectations’ is a phrase from Maureen Corrigan’s review of Peter Cameron’s book Coral Glynn yesterday on Fresh Air with Terry Gross