{"id":22998,"date":"2023-10-10T10:54:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T14:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22998"},"modified":"2023-10-10T11:32:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T15:32:06","slug":"22998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22998","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Phil Wickham - Living Hope (Lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9f2FXxDVO6w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">True Realism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In his 1980 talks on the prophets, Richard Rohr delves into the message of hope found in the book of Isaiah:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the prophet Second Isaiah* is writing, it\u2019s to people who are still in the midst of unbelievable pain and suffering. The ancient Israelites are still exiled and enslaved in Babylon, and they have been for decades. I imagine they would be overwhelmed by hopelessness. Yet in the midst of their exile, Isaiah writes what biblical scholars call the \u201cBook of Consolations.\u201d Isaiah says <strong>that injustice and evil are not the final reality. Instead, the final reality is the comfort and compassion of God. T<\/strong>he prophet stands in that place of trust. Isaiah becomes the prophet of hope because he knows God is not neutral but is involved in history. [1]\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rev. Douglas Donley writes about Isaiah\u2019s hope for those in exile:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The experience of the people Second Isaiah wrote to was not unlike the experience of the ancestors of many of the people gathered in our congregations who were yanked from their homes in Africa and forced to work [in slavery] on the plantations of North America and the West Indies.\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second Isaiah gives hope to the people who must try to sing the sacred songs in a strange land. In exile and despair, Isaiah preaches a word of hope. Too many of us have lost hope and see the future as nothing but bleak.\u2026 So to a people who are in a strange land, with a strange language, with laws and religious beliefs that seek to squelch any kind of integrity that they may have at their disposal, God through Isaiah speaks these words of comfort and hope:\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You shall go out in joy,\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<br>and be led back in peace;\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<br>the mountains and the hills before you\u202f&nbsp;<br>shall burst into song,\u202f\u202f&nbsp;<br>and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)\u202f[2]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rohr continues:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hope is not primarily for the future. It\u2019s for now! Hope is a way of seeing time and understanding the present. It\u2019s a way of tasting and receiving the moment. It gives us the capacity to enter into the future in a new way. In that sense, we can call hope true realism, because hope takes seriously all the many possibilities that fill the moment<\/strong>. Hope sees all the alternatives; it recognizes and creates an alternative consciousness. That\u2019s the hope of the prophet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The person who can see the moment fully is never hopeless<\/strong>. Hopelessness is an experience whereby a person\u2019s sight is set in one direction: \u201cThe only way I\u2019ll be happy is if such and such happens.\u201d When we can imagine only one way to be happy, we don\u2019t recognize the fullness and possibilities of the moment. We collapse if our one way is taken away from us. <strong>That\u2019s the power of the prophets\u2014to recognize that there is always another way for the promise to be fulfilled, another way for Divine Love to reach us.<\/strong> [3]\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3-497x500.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23000\" width=\"777\" height=\"782\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3-497x500.png 497w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3-298x300.png 298w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3-150x150.png 150w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3-768x772.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-3.png 1060w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 777px) 100vw, 777px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"497\" height=\"500\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4-497x500.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23002\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4-497x500.png 497w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4-298x300.png 298w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4-150x150.png 150w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4-768x772.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-4.png 1060w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>True Realism In his 1980 talks on the prophets, Richard Rohr delves into the message of hope found in the book of Isaiah:&nbsp;&nbsp; When the prophet Second Isaiah* is writing, it\u2019s to people who are still in the midst of unbelievable pain and suffering. The ancient Israelites are still exiled and enslaved in Babylon, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22998"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22998"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23004,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22998\/revisions\/23004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}