Waging hope: How do we practice and embody this beautiful quiet radical super power?

... How do you wage hope today?

Hope. Anyway.

Hope. Because.

Because hope moves us toward a better and more whole future.

Because hope changes things.

Because hope changes us.

I’m not talking about “wishful thinking” or some kind of positivity.

And I’m not talking about just passively waiting for it to all work out in the end.

By hope, I mean we decide to live in a way that changes the world we live in.

By hope, I mean we envision what is not fully realized and we act, love, live as if it is.

By hope, I mean it’s this thing we do: We wage hope.

This isn’t exactly a new idea, of course. Prophets of old, and prophets of not-so-old have shown us the way of hope for eons.

Because, well, we’ve needed hope for eons. And sometimes, in moments or seasons of disillusionment or despair, we forget that hope is a force.

Hope’s good work has changed the world in all kind of ways. I mean, most of us don’t live in caves anymore. Most of us have some degree of literacy, some opportunity to pursue self-actualization. Of course, there’s still much work to be done, much poverty and illness to eradicate, many -isms to dismantle. But, in the long view, hope has carried humanity a long way. And can carry us still.

Lots of people have been thinking about this and teaching this, and most importantly, practicing this, far longer and with more depth than I’ll ever offer.

Some folks call this work engaging the prophetic imagination, or radical imagination: employing our ability and choice to embrace a vision beyond our experience.

What if we choose to imagine the good and just human experience and then work toward it? Or behave as if we’re already there.

(This is silly, but my mother insisted that I learn proper table etiquette “in case I ever attended a royal meal”, which seemed unlikely when I was growing up in Amarillo, TX. But she was right, it came in handy in an actual meal with an actual near-royal, the VP of a foreign country. Thanks, Mom. You taught me to behave as if I were already there.)

More significantly, Angela Glover Blackwell begins with a question: Who do we want to be?

“I think the first thing that people have to do is ask “who do we want to be” as a nation. How do we want to live, how do we want others to be able to benefit and to reach their full potential?”

~ Angela Glover Blackwell, Forbes Interview

Theologian Walter Brueggemann says it this way (addressing the Christian community specifically):

“The world does not need the church to talk about what is already possible. The work of the church is to battle the world’s definition of what is believable and unbelievable.”
~ Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope

Thirty years ago I read Brueggeman’s The Prophetic Imagination while in seminary. His words remain not only relevant but urgent:

“Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”

~ Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

So, how do we do it, practically speaking? How do we wage hope?

I can only share what I’m learning, what I’m trying. I hope you’ll share your practices in the comments so that we can all learn from one another.

Here’s my starter list:

• I’m really trying to avoid labels and colors and language that signals an already-assumed understanding of another person or group’s experience (red/blue; us/them; pro/con; -ists; etc)

• I’m trying to make time and space and energy for longer and more nuanced conversations, and more invitation for really listening. It’s hard.

• Kindness and humor are great de-escalators. Lots of kindness, lots of humor (especially kind humor, you know: laughing with, not at).

• Some of us need quiet and/or solitude to get connected with an energetic vision of hope. I’m learning that I don’t know what other people need, and it’s a good question to ask: What helps you connect to an energetic vision of hope?

• Compassion. Mercy. Forgiveness. I’m learning that I need to be willing to offer these things just as much as I seek them for myself. (Or offer more, that’s what really tips the scales, after all)

• Music and movement, nature, art… our souls get thirsty. How do you hydrate that part of you that cultivates and practices hope?

Dear ones, in these moments and seasons of anxiety, please know you’re not alone, that hope and love prevail, and that we can do the hard stuff, because it’s also good and beautiful stuff.

You are so loved.