And regardless of how I feel about hope, here we are at Christmas. 

Seeing “courage” as a synonym for hope gave me pause yesterday. 

Faith seems a close neighbor to hope that fits me better. 

You can imagine the joy and lightness I brought to the Thanksgiving table when I asked my people, “What is the opposite of hope?”.

All I want for Christmas is December 26.

It’s an annual event held in Oaxaca, Mexico on December 23 and it involves intricate carvings of … you guessed it … radishes.

I lie there and think about the little lives we have all made and the places where they intersect and the parts we get to share. 

Umwelt (in which the “w” is pronounced like a “v” because German is just cool like that) means “the world as it is experienced by a particular organism.”

I don’t usually distinguish between types of joy.

When I need comfort (which is often), I do not feel strong.

When I don’t feel hope, that doesn’t mean I feel hopelessness or despair.

The world does not actually spin around us, and once we see that, we can’t un-see it.

I’m thinking of Jesus and Ghandi and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr.  I’m thinking of Buddha and Sojourner and Muhammed and Mandela. 

It’s harder to be sad when you’re skipping. Not impossible, but harder.

The thing about any lived experience is that it’s kind of all over the map.

On the first Sunday of Advent, a friend sent me a text reminding me that hope – early, Biblical hope – was somehow connected to prophecy.

Thinking on these things from an “it’s in the Bible” kind of way also necessarily entails a degree of separation via translation because I speak neither Hebrew nor Greek.

Words are kind of slippery.  We give them all sorts of meanings and contexts and roles. 

Of all the things people wanted from Jesus, what they wanted most was his attention.

Hope turns me away from this moment with the temptation that the next moment will be better.