Hope and Other Nonsense

What do you call yourself when it is precisely your Christian faith that recoils at the political-nationalism of the Evangelical right, and to choose the descriptor of “left” only exacerbates a polarization which also betrays your understanding of the name Christian?  How we live each day has always meant more than what we call ourselves.

“We’re all in this together” is quickly becoming the mantra of CEO’s taking their turn to speak to this novel virus running over our planet at an impressive rate. As I hear their attempts to reassure present and potential customers that “they are doing everything they can” to keep us and their employees safe so we might keep buying their stuff online, I am struck with some measure of gratitude and a greater portion of boredom. The decision by some multi-national corporations to continue paying their employees while their doors are closed before the impending federal bailout was announced is laudable, and deserving of our gratitude. Using their resources to care for the people who make their profits possible is a tangible gesture of concern and public responsibility, as the Federal Treasury is about to open the flood gates. It is on that fact alone, that some of these retail stores may pique enough interest to continue generating revenue in this strange time. After all, the timing may...

Hope is essential. Nothing matters much without it. But there is something nonsensical about hope, something unreasonable... ...and perhaps that is why we need it now more than ever. We are drowning in reasonable strategies and technical solutions and have ignored our emotional and spiritual natures as though they were soft and unproductive. Hope gets dismissed as impractical and relegated to the world of pleasantries. Hope is not an antiquated notion that pleads with us, saying everything is going to be ok. Hope does not fear reality, but risks seeing the pain, death, suffering, and destruction—and sees a future still. A future with love, and goodness, and joy, and flourishing. Hope is essential if we wish to imagine a future worthy of generations still to come. And yet, take hope too seriously, cling to it with certainty, let it be one more attachment in our self-help culture, we risk losing its creative power. Hope calls to be held lightly—playfully even—if we hope to ...