Setting the Theme: Choosing Hope

Here is the introduction from the December soul Matters materials.  If you would to get a copy of the full packet of materials on this theme, contact at Rev Lucy at .

It’s not always easy to hear well this time of year, especially when it comes to hope. The dominant messages are about hope offering us calm: “The light will return.” “A new day is on its way.” “Justice and joy are growing in the womb and will soon be born.” Hope, from this point of view, is a voice that reassures. It’s a welcomed whisper that says, “Yes, the sky may be dark now. Yes, the road you’re on at this moment may be hard. But trust me, just over that horizon, there’s a new world waiting for us all.”

It’s a beautiful and needed message. But, it’s also only half of what hope is trying to say. Hope doesn’t just whisper “It will be different,” it also shouts, “It should be different” and “It can be different.” Yes, it speaks soothing words about trusting and waiting, but it also takes the form of a holy impatience that declares, “Enough is enough. The time is now!”

In other words, hope doesn’t just promise us that change will come in the future; it also changes who we are in the present. When we believe that a new day is possible, we don’t just sit down and wait to see what happens. We get up and go out to meet the light. When hope convinces us that there are unseen forces working for the good, we begin to look around more closely, and in doing so, we notice that darkness and pain are not all that is there. When hope’s holy impatience gets into our bones, we start acting as if we are worthy of that new day now. Which in turn changes others by convincing them that we all have waited long enough.

But all of this only happens if we listen fully. So maybe the most important question this month is: “Are we listening to everything that hope has to say?”