Reflections on the first week of Advent: Hope
Advent comes with yearning. The first week of Advent focuses on hope. When is hope helpful and tangible, grounded in the here-and-now as well as in what comes next? When does hope focus too much on the future and remove us from the present?
Note: Check out this ‘Guide to Grounded Hope’ from Option B.
Pragmatic approach to the practice of developing hope.
Only Hope
— song by Switchfoot, performed by Mandy Moore
There’s a song that’s inside of my soul
It’s the one that I’ve tried to write over and over again
I’m awake in the infinite cold
But you sing to me over and over and over again
So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands
And pray to be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I know now you’re my only hope
Sing to me the song of the stars
Of your galaxy dancing
And laughing and laughing again
When it feels like my dreams are so far
Sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again
So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I know now you’re my only hope
I give you my destiny
I’m giving you all of me
I want your symphony
Singing in all that I am
At the top of my lungs I’m giving it back
So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I know now you’re my only hope
Expectation, Yearning, Anticipation, Preparation, Waiting …
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. — Mahatma Gandhi
Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise. — Karl Rahner
This Advent, I want to warm myself by the fire of hope! — Christopher West
Once again we mark the arrival of Advent. This holy season trumpets God’s extravagant love for us, a love beyond reckoning. Into our beautiful yet wounded world comes Emmanuel, God-with-us, carrying the promise of fresh hope to enliven our hearts. No matter how broken or seemingly hopeless our world may sometimes seem, the Advent messages are rich with joyous expectation and longing, insisting that God can and does bring forth life where none seems possible. ― Sr. Chris Koellhoffer IHM, Pope Francis: Living Advent With Joy and Peace: Encouragement and Prayers
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. — Anne Lamott
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. — Toni Morrison, Beloved
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death. — Robert Fulghum
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. — Helen Keller
To announce, however, that the Liberator is sitting among the poor and that the wounds are signs of hope and that today is the day of liberation, is a step very few can take. But this is exactly the announcement of the wounded healer: ‘The master is coming–not tomorrow, but today, not next year, but this year, not after all our misery is passed, but in the middle of it, not in another place but right here where we are standing.’ — Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now–in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally. … Indeed, God is transforming the world now–through us–because God loves us. ― Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time
Our time has a great need for hope! The young can no longer be robbed of hope. … The young need hope. It is necessary to offer concrete signs of hope to those who experience pain and suffering. Social organizations and associations, as well as individuals who strive towards acceptance and sharing, are generators of hope. Therefore, I exhort your Christian communities to be agents of solidarity, never to stop before those who, for mere personal interest, sow self-centeredness, violence and injustice. Oppose yourselves to the culture of death and be witnesses to the Gospel of life! May the light of God’s Word and the support of the Holy Spirit help you to look with new and willing eyes upon the new forms of poverty that drive so many young people and families to desperation. — Pope Francis, Audience with Italian diocese of Cassano all’Jonio in the region of Calabria, 2015
Opposing Thoughts on Hope
We hold onto hope and it robs us of the present moment. If hope and fear are two different sides of the same coin, so are hopelessness and confidence. If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. — Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us – to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here. — Thich Nhat Hahn, Peace Is Every Step
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is a line in Zechariah, often overlooked:
Return to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
Hope is powerful. Hope is different. It is more, much more, than mere optimism.
Optimism runs deep in the American consciousness. Many have commented on the inherent optimism of the American people. But optimism is….cheap.
Optimism is ultimately about optics, about how we see the world. It’s about seeing the glass half-full.
Hope is different. Hope is a cosmic quality. Hope is rooted in faith, with feet mired in suffering. Hope is a heart in agony that yearns for liberation.
As Desmond Tutu says, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” For hope to exist, there has to be darkness. For hope to be real, there has to be a prison. And we, in the prison.
Return to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope.
Hope is tied not to how we see the world, but to the faith we have in how the world actually is and will be.
Hope is not about seeing the world, but about the heart behind the eye, the soul that sees.
We hope that light will, someday, triumph over darkness, that love will gain victory over hatred, that compassion will gain over apathy.
We need to hope, to bear the darkness.
Return to your fortress.
O you prisoners of hope
Hope is not a choice. Hope is not optics. Hope is not mere politics. We are wrapped up in hope. Caught up in hope. Imprisoned in hope.
Return to your fortress.
O you prisoners of hope
We hope in the moral goodness of the universe. We hope in the goodness of God. We hope in the victory of good over evil. We hope, even if we may not get to see the triumph.
Hope is planting a tree, knowing that we will be feeding the warms under the tree’s ground before the tree yields fruit.
Hope, real hope, not cheap optimism, mingles with suffering. Hope, real hope, has nothing Pollyannaish about it.
Hope recognizes the chains around our feet, hope yearns for liberation in the very midst of the prison. Hope sees the rays of light in the depth of the dark night.
Hope is an active act of faith, refusing to surrender.
Return to your fortress
O you prisoners of hope
Fortress is not a zip code. Fortress has no walls and moats. Fortress is a commitment to God and humanity, to the poor and to beauty. It is in this fortress that we, the prisoners, find hope.
We hope because without hope life would not be bearable.
Go back to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope.
In the “go back”, I hear the voice of Martin. “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana.”
Go back to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope.
“Go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.”
Go back to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope.
Today, we say,
Go back to your fortress,
O you prisoners of hope.
Go back to Ferguson. Go back to Staten Island. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Chapel Hill. Go back to Syria. Go back to Palestine.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. Let us climb on ahead to the promised land of justice.
This is our hope. For us, the prisoners of hope.