Hope is Dangerous

The hopeful person is a dangerous person.  To hope is to creatively imagine a future different than the present.  It is to imagine a world freed from the constraints of present power structures, unhitched from the chains of social, economic, and racial distinctions.  To speak a hopeful word is to speak a disruptive word to the protectors of the status quo, those who through privilege, good fortune, social capital and influence, wealth and power, seek to preserve and defend the “way things are” because they reap the blessings of the current establishment.  

The hopeful person is a citizen of humankind and not merely a member of a narrowly defined clique or subculture, but one who has drunk deeply from the myriad of human experiences, who has looked deeply into the mosaic of human faces, whose heart has been wounded by the suffering and injustices of intolerance, abuse, violence, and exploitation.  But, having taken in the despairing realities of many, refuses despair as an option, instead mustering every bit of God-given strength, courage, and creativity to inspire the dream of difference.  The hopeful person is one who believes that in God’s wiring of humanity that the flame of human solidarity still flickers in the hearts of many.  Certainly there are those that seek to extinguish that flame, dousing that fire with the putrid waters of greed, arrogance, and selfishness.  But the hopeful person believes that all that fire needs is a bit of wind, a bit of breath blown on the embers to ignite it to a raging, all-consuming fire, one that consumes our lethargy, complacency and indifference.  The hopeful person prays…”Lord breathe on the embers so that the fire might again rage.”  

The hopeful person expends themselves, giving themselves away for a cause much greater than themselves, who refuses personal comfort and security as the end-all-be-all of human striving.  No, the hopeful person lives in pursuit of change, affecting and promoting change on the behalf of others, giving voice to the desperation of those whose voices have been quieted.  The hopeful person has no towel in their hands, for there is no giving up or throwing to the mat that towel.  Oh, they will draw the vitriolic condemnations of those in power, those threatened by promise of creative change.  They will be distrusted and abused, discredited and accused.  But they will prevail.  They will cling to the belief that God’s writing a redemptive story in this world and we are the pens he holds in his hand.  Though some may smear our ink, God continues to write for He will not be denied the final word.  

Hope is rooted in God’s promise of a world redeemed.  Hope is anchored in the example of Jesus.  Hope is made possible through the faithfulness of God’s Spirit traversing this earth awakening people to dream.  Hopeful people are dangerous because they announce to the world that things will not remain as they are.  God is at work.  Hopeful people are dangerous because they dare to dream!

Be a #hopetimist today!  One who believes that though the world is not as it should be, God is busy, at work, making it as it ought to be.