on realistic hope
“every spiritual journey is a pilgrimage, an exercise in anticipation and hope.” — image journal, “every breath a birth”
What is a realistic hopefulness? What does ‘the world as it should be’ feel, taste, smell like?
I’ve stewed over this question a lot over the past several months as war, unrest, injustice, slander, and division all feel as rampant and potent as ever.
In my latest piece with the Fetzer Institute, I parse out a few small steps toward answering this question through the liturgies, rhythms, and celebrations of this winter season.
The closing months of the year often come with mixed emotions. Although this season is typically marketed as joyful and filled with cheer, gratitude, and connection, our lived reality likely resembles something different. In an ongoing social moment marked by division, hostility, violence, and tension, this season more accurately looks like fumbling through conversations about global conflict, national politics, immigration, worker strikes, and the like with distant relatives and old friends who stop by once a year.
To be sure, these conversations aren’t isolated in the holiday season. However, there is a perverse, hope-crushing irony found in arguing over these weighty topics while Nat King Cole or The Muppet Christmas Carol plays in the background. If we can’t find community, healing, joy, or hope in this season that is supposed to bring about these very things, how can this ever be found?
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In a brilliant conversation between Matt Croasmun and Luke Bretherton, Bretherton asks, “What is a realistic hopefulness? What does ‘the world as it should be’ feel, taste, smell like?”
In this season, I am reminded that hope looks a lot like the anticipation of God’s redemptive action; it feels like a compassionate touch of comfort; it tastes like a meal shared with friends and strangers alike; it smells like a coffee shop filled with people from all walks of life sharing a conversation; and it sounds like the collective voices of people across faith traditions joining together to speak words of affirmation, joy, and life to one another.