Sunday, June 21, 2026
Hope arises when we embrace a sacred reality.
—Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light
Father Richard Rohr finds encouragement in his belief that we are created in the image of God, who is love:
The Jesuit priest and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Love is the physical structure of the universe.” [1] Our theological or scriptural way of saying the same thing is “Let us create in our image” (Genesis 1:26). The universe—and each of us—are made in the image of the triune God, who is love, a dynamic cycling of infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.
If God is both incarnate and implanted, both Christ and Holy Spirit, then an unfolding inner dynamism in all creation is not only certain but also moving in a positive direction. If we are to have foundational hope, it almost demands a foundational belief in a world that is still and always unfolding toward something better. This is the virtue of hope. Personally, I have found that it is almost impossible for individuals or communities to heal over the long haul if they do not trust that the whole cosmic arc is also on a trajectory toward the good.
Admittedly, sometimes the suffering and injustices of our time make it hard to believe in that arc of love. I think that is part of the church’s major failure: to provide Western civilization with a positive, hopeful, and cosmic understanding of our own “good news.” [2]
Choctaw elder and Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston describes how this love and foundational hope surround us at all times:
The tipping point of faith is the threshold of spiritual energy, where what we believe becomes what we do. When that power is released, there is no stopping it, for love is a force that cannot be contained….
Hope lets us literally see the presence and action of the holy in our everyday lives. This is not an imaginary desire viewed through rose-colored glasses. It is the solid evidence of the power of love made visible in abundance….
Sometimes, in this troubled world of ours, we forget that love is all around us. We imagine the worst of other people and withdraw into our own shells. But try this simple test: Stand still in any crowded place and watch the people around you. Within a very short time, you will begin to see love, and you will see it over and over and over. A young mother talking to her child, a couple laughing together as they walk by, an older man holding the door for a stranger—small signs of love are everywhere. The more you look, the more you will see. Love is literally everywhere. We are surrounded by love…. Hope makes room for love in the world.
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Mercy and Mystical Hope
Monday, June 22, 2026
CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault describes hope as a quality of God’s mercy, fully available to us:
Hope’s home is at the innermost point in us, and in all things. It is a quality of aliveness. It does not come at the end, as the feeling that results from a happy outcome. Rather, it lies at the beginning, as a pulse of truth that sends us forth. When our innermost being is attuned to this pulse it will send us forth in hope, regardless of the physical circumstances of our lives. Hope fills us with the strength to stay present, to abide in the flow of the Mercy no matter what outer storms assail us. It is entered always and only through surrender; that is, through the willingness to let go of everything we are presently clinging to. And yet when we enter it, it enters us and fills us with its own life—a quiet strength beyond anything we have ever known.
And since that strength is, in fact, a piece of God’s purposiveness coursing like sap through our own being, it will lead us in the right way. It sweeps us along in the greater flow of divine life as God moves … toward the fulfillment of divine purpose which is the deeper, more intense, more subtle, more intimate revelation of the heart of God. [1]
Through contemplative practice and surrender, Bourgeault believes we can experience God’s mystical hope and become a healing presence in the world:
In the contemplative journey, as we swim down into those deeper waters toward the wellsprings of hope, we begin to experience and trust what it means to lay down self, to let go of ordinary awareness and surrender ourselves to the mercy of God. And as hope, the hidden spring of mercy deep within us, is released in that touch and flows out from the center, filling us with the fullness of God’s own purpose living itself into action, then we discover within ourselves the mysterious plentitude to live into action what our ordinary hearts and minds could not possibly sustain. In plumbing deeply the hidden rootedness of the whole, where all things are held together in the Mercy, we are released from the grip of personal fear and set free to minister with skillful means and true compassion to a world desperately in need of reconnection.
Hope is not imaginary or illusory. It is that sonar by which the body of Christ holds together and finds its way. If we, as living members of the body of Christ, can surrender our hearts … and listen for that sonar with all we are worth, it will again guide us, both individually and corporately, to the future for which we are intended. And the body of Christ will live, and thrive, and hold us tenderly in belonging.
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Individual Reflection
Where have you been generating hope rather than receiving it — and what would it feel like to stop?
Group Discussion — choose one:
- Bourgeault says hope is “entered always and only through surrender.” What are you currently clinging to that might be blocking it?
- Charleston invites us to stand still and watch for love. When did you last see it somewhere you weren’t expecting it?
- If hope is the sonar that holds the body of Christ together, what would it mean to listen for it rather than produce it?
