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 HOPE
 
Enhances:
Optimism
Balances/Counters:
 Despair, Impatience
The Basic Practice
 
Hope
is a positive and potent spiritual practice with the power to pull usthrough difficult times. It is usually described with light metaphors — aray, a beam, a glimmer of hope; the break in the clouds; the light at theend of the dark tunnel. It is often discovered in unexpected places.Hope can be learned with practice. Certain attitudes support it. One ispatience, an ability to tolerate delays, a willingness to let events unfoldin their own time. The other is courage, an attitude of confidence evenwhen facing the unknown. A third is persistence, the determination tokeep going no matter what happens. We have hope when we can say, allwill be well, and we mean it.
Why This Practice May Be For You
Hope is the basic ingredient of optimism, a tendency to dwell on the bestpossibilities. It is a frequent companion of another spiritual practice —
 
enthusiasm. It, too, is energizing. The greeting "Be of good cheer" puts itwell.But a more common — and very telling expression — is "Hope for thebest, but expect the worst." The more likely outcome, it implies, is theworst. When we are without hope, we easily fall victim to suchnegativism. When the light of hope is absent, we are overcome by gloomand doom, despair and defeatism.In terms of personal style, without hope, we find it difficult to be patientand are easily frustrated. We may lack the courage to continue strugglingagainst adversity. We are faint-hearted and quickly discouraged. Wereally do expect the worst.
Quotations
The Chinese have a saying: If you keep a green bough in your heart surelythe singing bird will come. — Chinese saying quoted in
The Web in theSea
by Alice O. HowellLet us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eatthem. We must live by the love of what we will never see.... Suchdisciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saintsthe courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their ownbodies the seed of their highest hope. — Rubem Alves quoted in
There IsA Season
by Joan ChittisterA part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is tostudy life and our conditions, searching always for the authenticunderpinnings of hope. — Wendell Berry quoted in
Hope, Human andWild
by Bill McKibben
 
Prayer is hope's breathing. When we stop praying, we stop hoping. —Dom Pedro Casaldaliga quoted in
Lent
by Megan McKennaThere are also times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness. — Jean Giono quoted in
The Music of Time
by John S.DunneNo one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much workto do. — Dorothy Day quoted in
In a High Spiritual Season
by JoanChittisterHe that lives in hope dances without music. — George Herbert quoted in
Joy
by Beverly Elaine EanesHope is the foundation for creativity, inspiration, joy and all thoseemotions which allow us to transcend ourselves. — Verena Kast in
Joy,Inspiration and Hope
 We have only begunto imagine the fullness of life.How could we tire of hope?So much is in the bud.— Denise Levertov in
Candles in Babylon
 The gift of hope makes every person, as well as the whole family of humanity, very valuable; the vision of future rightness sends back astamp of rightness into the present. It also makes life a little moreplayful. What we cannot do in a million calendar squares, God will do inhis own time. — Lewis B. Smedes in
How Can It Be All Right WhenEverything Is All Wrong?
 The note we end on is and must be the note of inexhaustible possibilityand hope. — Evelyn Underhill quoted in
God Hunger
by John Kirvan
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