The Hope

Hope – It’s Not What You Think
I used to think hope was akin to wishful thinking, until I attended a one day retreat at Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center. Since my personal preference is towards planning, working, and execution of an idea, the concept of hope has never attracted or engaged me. Wishful thinking just seemed to be another obstacle to getting something done. As I discovered, though, if one shifts the definition a little bit, the idea of hope shifts from being irrelevant to being a powerful positive force behind one’s action.
Hope is not:
1. Hope is not just wishful thinking.
2. Hope is not a state of the world. It is a state of mind.
3. Hope is not essentially dependent on a particular observation of the world.
4. Hope is not a positive prognosis or positive forecast.
5. Hope is not the same as the joy that things are going well.
6. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, i.e., optimism.
Hope is:
1. Vaclav Havel, the poet, said hope is a state of mind. It is a dimension of the soul. It is an orientation of the spirit and the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its         horizons. It is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. It is the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that sometimes seem without hope.
2. Erich Fromm said hope is being ready at every moment for that which is not born. Hope cherishes all signs of new life and is an inner readiness, that of intense but not-yet-spent activeness.
3. Emily Dickenson said:
    “Hope is a strange invention—
    A patent of the Heart—
    In unremitting action
    Yet never wearing out—.”
4. Martin Luther King said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
5. Pearl S. Buck said,...