Wishes are about what we want. Hope is about what God wants.
hope
Hope holds us in our time. Without it, we have no place in our own history.
This year, as I meditated on my longing, my pregnant hope, I located it on that table, somewhere between the salad and the ravioli, when our imperfect lives came together.
From generation to generation
Yaa Gyasi's novel reveals the freedoms and captivities we all inherit.
Elie Wiesel has died. Reading the obituaries, the thing that astounds me is the thing that has always astounded me: how young he was. Eighty-seven now, in 2016. I’ve been burying World War II veterans throughout my years of pastoral ministry. How could Wiesel only be 87?
she: robed and wordless, by Lou Ella Hickman
This slim volume of poetry gives voice to the women of the Bible, named and unnamed.
Hope without Optimism, by Terry Eagleton
This provocative book portrays hope as a virtue, a moral orientation that can be cultivated actively, a matter of will.
My words feel small. Like I’m trying to beat back the ocean with a stick. I could command the waves to stop, but the sea will keep pounding the sand. Recent world events have generated a lot of fodder for preachers and writers, and yet I have nothing to say.
It is at this point that Jesus reminds us that God completely throws off our human calculations of what will be constant and what will change, for “what is impossible for mere humans is possible for God” he insists.
Christmas is more complicated now, with its layers of meaning. Joy can no longer be wrapped up with a tidy bow. But, for me, this year, since I cannot have the world as it ought to be, I’m determined to find beauty in the yearning.