'I'm glad I'm not God'

What I had to do now was get my project back on track. Optimism was my trump card. It was something that Zara understood, something she admired, something we could collaborate on.
In the meantime, action was required: clear, decisive action on some pressing world issue, something that worried everyone and would be impossible to ignore. I needed something simple and straightforward, something depressing and universal, like starvation or poverty or . . .
“Africa,” said Zara, when I saw her that evening. "Are you not going to tackle Africa?"
"That's it!" I said.
How could I forget Africa? It had been on my list from the start – item 35, between Food Prices and the Absence of a Tangible, Interventionist Deity – but I had put it off, intimidated by the scale of the problem. It was right in the pessimist sweet spot, a constant source of worry and guilt, the perfect excuse for cynics to feel bad about humanity and give up on the world. Forget Buddhism or psychology. Africa needed serious attention. But who could help me figure it out?
"Desmond Tutu?" suggested Zara.
"Tutu!" I said. "Why not?"
Archbishop Tutu, surely, was the ultimate optimist: legend of the anti-apartheid struggle, founder of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and veteran campaigner for peace. He was so busy bringing forgiveness and reconciliation to the planet, and so ubiquitously present in every global initiative, I sometimes wondered if he had cloned himself and offered himself for commercial release.
Would he have time for us?

That evening I sat at my desk, trying to visualise a meeting with Desmond Tutu. I pictured myself in a grand office with alabaster statuettes and oil portraits of churchmen. Tutu was wearing a purple gown and I was in a suit.
I waited. Was something supposed to happen? The self-help books had said quite clearly that I was supposed to make my request and then leave it in the hands of the universe. But then what? The image faded.
Unwilling to put my trust in wishful thinking, I fired off an email to Tutu's office, asking when we could see each other. I told him I would be bringing my assistant, Zara, who was a trained psychologist, and that we had matters of importance to discuss with him. My tone was confident, masterly. Within an hour his secretary had replied.

I'm sorry, the Archbishop is travelling constantly and I can't crowd him with meetings.

I picked up the phone. As if that was going to stop me! I knew if I could get this meeting, then Zara and I could have one last, epic holiday together – and our union would surely be sealed. I would not give up. I called Tutu's office and pleaded, with ruthless and irresistible persistence, until his secretary finally gave in.
Two weeks later we were in Cape Town.

6.45 a.m. The chapel of St George's Cathedral, waiting for the morning service to begin. We didn"t exactly have a meeting, but Tutu's secretary knew that I was here. She said that she would do her best. It was good enough for me.
I smiled at Zara. Amazingly, we hadn't had an argument about emotional commitment for days. She had even stopped arguing when I introduced her as my girlfriend. It seemed she had finally accepted her destiny as my future wife. The tide was beginning to turn.
I scanned the chapel for Desmond's secretary.
Strangely, my hands were beginning to sweat.
"Relax," said Zara. "Trust that things will work out. That's what optimism is all about."
"What do you mean, trust?"
"Make a clear and positive intention that the meeting will happen, and then it will." She smiled, brightly.
"I'll try," I said.
A rustle of anticipation passed through the congregation as a small man in a purple dress walked up the aisle. He gave the crowd a long-suffering grin. I tried to catch his eye but he didn"t seem to notice me.
Tutu delivered the service and then closed his Bible with a look of relief. "Welcome!" he shouted. "Welcome, welcome!"
The congregation clapped as if they had just witnessed God himself giving communion.
"It wasn't that great," I whispered.
Tutu's secretary appeared and led us outside to a bustling café. Inside there was a committee of at least 15 Tutu fans waiting for their hero.
"We're hungry!" cried Desmond, appearing in the doorway.
I crammed myself next to two other worshippers – a lady priest from Canada and a silent German. The archbishop was squashed in the middle like a birthday boy, with an oversized cup of chocolate in his hand. He was doing his best to talk to everyone at once. The Canadian priest – with her upturned collar and Margaret Thatcher handbag – was dominating the early running with stories about her diocese. Her object of worship looked bored. I seized my chance.
"Archbishop," I said, "I'm Laurence Shorter, the optimist. . ."
The room went swimmy as my eyes tunnelled in on the international celebrity.
"Mmm . . ." said Tutu. "The optimist. Well, let me tell you, I am not an optimist." He looked around the table as if to muster support. "I'm definitely . . . not . . . an . . . optimist. I am . . . a Prisoner of Hope!"
I felt as if I had just been shot in the chest. A chorus of admiring sighs ascended from the Tutu fan club.
"Optimism," he said, pointing his finger to the ceiling, "can turn far too quickly into pessimism if conditions don't go well. Hope is different!"
He cackled meanly. I was now the object of attention – possibly hatred – of the entire cafeteria. "But isn't hope the same as optimism?" I persisted.
"Not optimism . . . no!" He grimaced at my dictaphone.
"Hope is an article of faith! That despite all appearances to the contrary it's going to be OK!"
"That is optimism," I insisted, but the archbishop ignored me.
By this time my fellow breakfasters were beginning to look at me as if I were an ambassador from another species, probably in the insect kingdom. The Nobel Prize winner himself was giving my project the thumbs down, in public. Carol from Canada shifted her seat slightly to the left. Didn't she know who I was?
Tutu grinned. "For example, we always said that apartheid would end . . . but all the signs indicated that we ought to give up hope! That we ought to be totally pessimistic! I mean, the international community supported the apartheid government. Your Prime Minister actually called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. If you were only an optimist you would have given up!"
He looked around, appealing to the crowd.
"This is a moral universe," he declared. "There's no way that injustice . . . ha ha ha! . . . will ultimately prevail. But that's an article of faith! It's not something that depends on how things look. Things look awful."
I took a gulp of tea. I had to let him know we were talking about the same thing – that he really was an optimist, that I wasn't a naïve fool but a very nice young man. Maybe then he would stop talking to me like some kind of colonial idiot from the 1980s.
"But aren't optimists better at being hopeful?" I reasoned.
Desmond frowned. "Now you are cheating because you are making me talk about what we are supposed to talk about later. So you needn't come! We've finished our interview. Goodbye!"
I was shell-shocked. I didn't even know we had an interview. And I had already blown it. I ran to the toilet and did a yoga move to calm myself down. If I gave up now, the whole reputation of optimism would be in jeopardy.
When I got back, breakfast was over. The archbishop had gone. I ran out of the building and followed his secretary down the street.
"Do you have a car?" she asked.
"No!" I cried.
"We can give you a lift to the office." She caught up with Tutu. "They're going with you," she ordered.
"Oh, man!" he sighed. "Only if you promise not to talk!"
Next thing I knew I was sitting in a BMW. Zara was in the back and Tutu was in the driving seat. Desmond looked out the window. "No talking!" he said.
It took twenty minutes to get to his office. Tutu gazed contemplatively at the road, still hoping that I would somehow disappear if he didn't look at me. I wasn't sure what I had done to offend him but I didn't care any more. I was sitting in a car with Desmond Tutu – and he was driving! I felt as if the doors of the universe had opened and finally let me in. From now on, everything would be OK.
At the next junction, Tutu twisted around in his seat. "Let me give you some advice. Don't be optimistic. Be hopeful. Hope is not dependent on reality." He looked at Zara in the mirror. "Hope says that good will ultimately triumph over evil. But in the meantime you have to put up with poverty and torture."
He waved at the traffic. An ocean of cars waited politely at a crossing, giving way without a honk. "Incredible! People can actually be quite considerate on occasion."
"Maybe I can persuade you," I said.
Tutu ignored me and steered his vehicle into a business park. A gateman waved us past.
"I have a firm faith in people," said the cleric quietly, as he parked the car. "I believe that people are fundamentally good." He looked me up and down. "Now most of the evidence contradicts that, you know, and yet . . ."
He put his head in his hands. "Oh, man! Why am I talking to you?"

Tutu led us up a stairway past some numbered, prefabricated business units. I looked around, confused. Where was the palace? Where were the liveried guards and the ornamental fountains? Had I made some kind of mistake?
To my relief, the archbishop's study was covered with awards and plaques from the nations of the world. I could feel the warmth returning to my cheeks. It felt good to be surrounded by the hushed approval of great men. I could do this, I thought to myself. I could be a world leader. Why not? I gazed longingly at a framed medallion cast in gold.
"Have you met my girlfriend?" he asked, pointing to a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident. "I've never met her, but I like to call her my girlfriend." He winked at Zara and stared back up at the picture. "They wouldn't even let her see her husband when he was dying. They are such vicious creatures. Vicious, vicious, vicious. But they are also God's children. Oohh! I'm glad I'm not God! Ha ha ha!"
I laughed politely. No wonder Tutu was getting hope and optimism mixed up. He was a Christian!
The old man sat down. "Yes?"
"Optimism," I reminded him.
He put his hands together and frowned. I frowned back in return.
"You might not agree with optimism," I said, "but at least it's better than pessimism."
"Nah," he said, stubbornly. "I think optimism leads far too easily into pessimism . . . really. Because as soon as the material circumstances change then you are for the high jump."
"But . . ."
"Listen, pessimists are usually people who are not actually doing too badly. But they're cynical because they're holding onto the wrong kind of things. They"re holding onto externals . . ."
Oh, no, I thought, not again.
"You're cynical because you think that external things can make you happy . . . you know, a smart car, a nice house, a beautiful wife, but it was discovered long ago . . . you don't have to be a Christian to realise that. Ha! All of these material things, wealth, success, sex . . . they don't actually have the capacity to satisfy."
I cast a doleful look at Zara. Did every optimist I meet have to get involved in our personal relationship? Everyone knows that material things are superficial and unsatisfying. But some are less superficial than others. Like joint bank accounts and two-bedroom apartments in West London.
"So what is hope?" I asked, my voice steady.
"I think there is a deeper thing that people have. Human beings have a remarkable resilience. I was in Haiti just now and the poverty is . . . it just knocks the breath out of you. And yet people could laugh, people are smiling, people are neat, and they call that . . . home! You know, that dingy, squalid shack . . . home! There is something in us that tells us we"re made for something better."
"And Africa?" I asked cautiously. "Do you feel 'hopeful' that it can sort itself out?"
He looked up sharply. "If you were just a little more modest and remembered just a little bit of your own history you"d not be so hoity-toity."
"I"m sorry?"
"I often say to Europeans, I just wish you didn't have such short memories. You know, you produced two world wars, you produced the Holocaust and you've most recently produced ethnic cleansing! I mean you are experts!" He laughed, full of mirth, "Yes, Africa," he said, as if he were thinking out loud to himself. "It will take some doing, but it will be done. Yes, it will be done."
There was a knock and his secretary poked her head around the door. "Time is up!"
Tutu smiled faintly and carried on in a whisper. "We used to do a lot of funerals. When we were talking to our people we would say to them, 'Do you know what? Some of you are going to be killed. Some of you, they are going to torture you. You're not going to see this wonderful denouement. But it doesn"t matter, it's going to happen!' And there was an incredible time in the struggle when people were remarkably altruistic, when they said, 'It doesn"t matter if I'm tortured or killed, as long as it contributes to the attainment of our freedom.' Now there must be something that makes these young people say, 'Even death doesn"t matter. My total . . . my apparent . . . total ANNIHILATION doesn't matter.'" He slapped his hand on the chair leg. "And it"s not optimism!"
By now, I had figured out Tutu's system. Hope was a code word for optimism. And optimism was a code word for stupidity. We were talking about exactly the same things. We just had different vocabulary.
But the old warhorse wasn"t going to budge. "You know, the police . . . they used to have photographs of Mandela and lesser mortals like . . . like me. And they liked to use us for target practice! They have your face and that was . . . he hehe hehe heh ha ah aha!" He rolled his eyes and hooted. "Hope," he said. "Yeah . . . Hope is a God who accepts everyone. Even killers. And that is when you say, I think I've got to be a better person. Not because that is the grounds on which God accepts me. No, God has accepted me already!"
He put his hand on my knee. "You know, the Bible says some extraordinary things. It says, God chose you before the foundation of the world. God said, Laurence, this is going to be my special child." I looked down, mesmerised, at his giant fingers. "And then because you are God's special child you then evolve into . . . a saint."
"That"s very interesting," I said.
"Every one of us has the capacity to become a saint," said Tutu slowly. "The best thing that God ever created is you." He smacked my knee. "You! Especially! There"s nothing better, God couldn"t have done better. You"re the best thing that God ever produced . . . ! You see?"
I nodded.
"Good!” He cranked himself off his chair. "Now get out!"