Hope

So, the familiar verse in I Corinthians 13 (NRSV) says, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” But, hey, I have often felt scared and without much hope, especially as a recovering co-dependent when I made choices that were not what I “should” do! What is the hope of I Corinthians? Well, in time and in the ever so, I began to notice a hope that was more than emotional, more than crossing my fingers — a steadfast hope that anchors my soul. It’s called Intrinsic Hope – A Quaker Perspective on Hope.
 
"Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness toinvest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because itis good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important formof hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere.’ It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try newthings, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”  ~ Vaclav Havel; 1936-2011; Last Czechoslovakian president until its dissolution in 1992.
 
Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault