Nourishing Deep Hope: Imagine a Better Way

by Pastor Shamaine Chambers King

Many of us feel hopeless. Discussing hope can seem frivolous, naive, and even unhelpful, considering present realities. But when we give up hope, we begin to lose our humanity, and there is too much at stake to allow that to happen.

Krysta Tippet, in her podcast On Being, often asks her guests two questions at the end of her interviews:

What is making you despair?
And what is giving you hope?

I marvel at how the wise people on her show answer these questions. The answers aren’t separate. They don’t stand in opposition to each other, but are related. What gives these sages hope is often intertwined with the very thing that causes them to despair. The seeds of hope begin to sprout in the fecund soil of their hopelessness.

As followers of Jesus, we are given a blueprint for hope. Jesus had a way of seeing and moving through the world that didn’t deny the realities of pain, evil, and despair. He looked squarely at the power systems of his day, the many ways they benefitted a few while causing many others to suffer, but he wouldn’t accept that things needed to stay that way. He spoke up. He called them out. He named a different reality. He got others involved. This is what hope looks like. We are called to live with this same orientation of hope—to see things as they are and insist they don’t have to stay this way, to refuse to accept as inevitable the things that are leading to despair.

Christian hope is rooted in a tenacious belief that God loves all creation and wants each part of creation and each person to thrive. We are called to imagine a better way, God’s way. The work of hope begins with gratitude. Naming our blessings and thanking God allows us to envision what could be. If we are to maintain a hope worth having, we must exercise our hope muscles—flexing them and strengthening them. The work of hope is a spiritual practice that we must choose again and again. Like all matters of faith, hope isn’t individual but something we do with each other. Together, we hope and work toward that hope.

Journal Prompt:

What is filling you with despair, and what is giving you hope?

Nourishing Hope : Waiting

by Natalie Steenson

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31 NIV

The ancient Hebrew word hope found in Isaiah 40:31 is “קָוָה - qavah," which means hope. However, a more accurate translation of this word is
“to wait with expectancy, to look for, to lie in wait for.”

Wait?
How long must we wait?

I was reading one of my favorite children's book "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen to my preschool students recently, and was struck by the patience the young child displays in the hope of seeing a great horned owl with her father as they quietly walk in the forest on a winter's night. And as her father calls out "whoo whoo whoo," they wait expectantly, but hear and see nothing in return. She says, "I was not disappointed. My brothers all said sometimes there's an owl and sometimes there isn't." At the end of the book, without giving away the story, the little girl beautifully states, "When you go owling you don't need words or warm or anything but hope.That's what Pa says. The kind of hope that flies on silent wings under a shining Owl Moon." (You can listen to a reading of this classic book, Owl Moon, in the playlist below)

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 NRSVUE

Psalm 130

Waiting for Divine Redemption

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.

5 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel
    from all its iniquities.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me. Easter says to us that despite everything to the contrary,

his will for us will prevail, love will prevail over hate,

justice over injustice and oppression,

peace over exploitation and bitterness.

-- Emily Dickinson

Christ Our Hope in Life and Death

by Keith & Krystn Getty
based on Question 1 of the Heidelberg Confession

What is our hope in life and death?
Christ alone, Christ alone
What is our only confidence?
That our souls to him belong
Who holds our days within his hand?
What comes, apart from his command?
And what will keep us to the end?
The love of Christ, in which we stand

O sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death

To hear the song Christ Our Hope in Life and Death on YouTube click this underlined link:

Christ Our Hope in Life and Death

Nourishing Hope : Mystical Hope

by Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE (abbeyofthearts.com) September 3, 2017 (excerpt)

In her book Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault writes that “(Mystical hope) has something to do with presence — not a future good outcome, but the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something intimately at hand.” Allowing time to feel met by the divine and held in communion is a reminder for us as we return to the demands of our lives and seek to make wise and compassionate choices. It helps to nourish hope deep within us.