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Why hope?

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 keep it at all.

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