Category Archives: hope
Hope: Quotes Worth Having
Frederick Buechener
“Ministers and congregation both, they came to church year after year, and who is to say how if at all their lives were changed as the result? If you’d stopped and asked them on any given Sunday, I suspect they would have said they weren’t changed much. Yet they kept on coming anyway; and beneath all the lesser reasons they had for doing so, so far beneath that they themselves were only half aware of it, I think there was a deep reason, and if I could give only one word to characterize that reason, the word I would give is hope….
I think it is hope that lies at our hearts and hope that finally brings us all here. Hope that in spite of all the devastating evidence to the contrary, the ground we stand on is holy ground because Christ walked here and walks here still. Hope that we are known, each one of us, by name, and that out of the burning moments of our lives he will call us by our names to the lives he would have us live and the selves he would have us become. Hope that into the secret grief and pain and bewilderment of each of us and of our world he will come at last to heal and to save. “ Frederick Buechener-Originally published in Secrets in the Dark
NRS Psalm 130:7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem
“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.´ Lin Yutang
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful
Reinhold Niebuhr
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. Reinhold Niebuhr
NRS Romans 8:18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
“But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.” —Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life
“Hoping does not mean doing nothing… It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying. And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it His way and in His time.” –Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1980/2000), 144.
What a fellowship, what a joy divineLeaning on the everlasting arms.What a blessedness, what a peace is mineLeaning on the everlasting arms.
Chorus:Leaning, leaningSafe and secure from all alarms.Leaning, leaningLeaning on the everlasting arms.
O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim wayLeaning on the everlasting arms.O how bright the path grows from day to dayLeaning on the everlasting arms. What have I to dread; what have I to fearLeaning on the everlasting arms.I have blessed peace with my Lord so nearLeaning on the everlasting arms.
Between Cross and Easter
Of late, not only in my ministry work, but through the connections of social media, I have been highly conscious of the processions of sorrow that go on around us in the midst of life. In my work, we are walking near every kind of brokenness and sorrow in the world every week, then trying hard to stand up and proclaim hope on Sunday.
Brokenness comes in so many different forms, but it all shares one truth–suddenly we are in a room with no walls to keep predators out, no roof to shield us from torrential storms, no floor to stop us from going down. WIth that comes temptation to panic, that we might absolutely burst from the heaviness of it all. It is here that faith matters most if it matters at all.
This prayer is from my 2015 book, Poems, Prayers and Unfinished Promises. It was a prayer given originally as an invocation to a performance of the Requiem by John Rutter. If you are in that place, perhaps it would be of some encouragement today.
We came here tonight to wait and to hope
That tombs and sorrow and death and loss
Are only prelude
To seek the Living shepherd,
Beyond our doubts, beyond our fears,
From death into life.
We wait faithfully
Hoping that
You might meet us in our gardens of sorrow as you met Mary,
We wait for unexpected visions in the midst of our tears.
And for you to come to us
As you came to them behind the locked doors of fear
To wait tonight is enough
For tomorrow we will walk to the tomb again Read the rest of this entry
Brian: In Memoriam
On Monday, I conducted a funeral service for a 43 year old man, Brian Booth, whom I’d known for 25 years. He had never spoken a single word to me, only responding with eye signals and laughs and sounds. Brian lived with cerebral palsy, profound in its limitations. His father shared a story about him.
Brian had a wonderful nurse for a number of years who was originally from Jamaica. Joan was one of those people that Brian would welcome with that beaming dimpled smile. Joan provided Brian with such incredible loving care and he was so appreciative. She would sit in the floor so she would be on his level, and talk to him about all sorts of things. He sincerely enjoyed hearing about other peoples’ trials and travails…so much so that he would laugh out loud when Joan would tell him about things that weren’t going just right. She always said that his laugh would make her forget anything that wasn’t going as expected. She would go home and share Brian’s ministry of laugh with her sister. If things were going off the tracks for her sister, Joan would simple tell her “you need to go see Brian”.
The differently abled and their families have so much to teach us. As a part of that service, I wrote and shared the following.
Yes, Brian was once a little boy.
Brian, on the day of his baptism in 2013.Yes, Brian was a little boy.
But not forever. He became a man.
His wheel chair and the helpless limbs kept most of us
From knowing that—but he had a quick mind.
Rapid eyes followed all that passed by.
He did not miss any of life. He lived it
even if it wasn’t like yours and mine.
He lived his days knowing father and mother love
Far more than many who never have it at all;
Brothers and sisters made him laugh
and loved him, loved to be with him and whatever
Scrapes they might have had with each other they knew
What was said to Brian always stayed with Brian
No matter what.
It’s easy to see only limbs that don’t work
And stop seeing a brain that does, a heart that feels,
A young man’s understanding soul inside that laughed
At the name of Jesus. When did you last
Show your Lord such honor?
He had his preferences, like everyone.
Reese’s peanut butter cups were just this side of heaven;
Barney on the other hand, never made the cut. Something
About a man in a purple dinosaur suit hit Brian wrong.
But of all the things of earth, the bad was a very short list.
How well have I done to avoid whining,
or being critical, complaining and unhappy?
And what reasons do I have for my hurried ingratitude?
Life is gift, but to know it while you live it? That’s pure grace.
He did. He caused so much love, beyond mere pity.
Yes and No with his eyes would do for ordinary things.
Smiles and laughter and groans and moans
For all the rest. And that is enough to live a life
Impart love to all around you and make it worthwhile
to have been here at all.
It’s the wake behind the boat that shows its power. Not admiration or envy
But waves and waves of love and the ache of its departure..
He was here. Jesus loved him. And he knew it.
That should be enough for any of us. The rest is for show.
Isn’t it?
