ISBC 3 - Hope is Not Charging into the Future
Chapter 3 of Hope: A User's Manual
Hope on the soul level is patient. Hope invites us to cradle the past, rest in the present, and dream a beautiful future—however long it takes.1
I love this waterfall. I have shared photos and reflections on it several times before. It is a simple waterfall at a nearby park and it is sadly largely dry currently. It is the creek that draws from the drained lake I shared about when I first introduced this series.
What I love most about this waterfall is that there is a clear separation of the water before the waterfall (smooth, slow moving, and reflective), the water transitioning to the fall (smooth-ish but a definite shift), and the water cascading down into the creek below. I love spending time at this waterfall every time I am there and I look forward to when water will fall over it consistently once again.
Part of photographing this waterfall though is doing something with photography that isn’t the norm. A photograph is initially created usually in a fraction of a second. This is in contrast to a painting where it might be a day, a week, or a year or more. But there are times when a photograph can take a bit more time. Maybe not a week long shutter but there are times that an exposure requires a few seconds or a few minutes. This allows for the smoothness like you see in this photo but also a sense of the movement.
Hope feels like a long exposure to me. Hope rarely feels to me like something that is experienced or shared in a fraction of a second. But it takes time to see the movement of life, to feel the presence of another, to draw the connections that have been present but maybe not obvious in a specific moment. Like MaryAnn said, hope goes from the past, meets in the present, and changes how we live into the future.
How have you seen this movement in your life? How are you seeing it today? Where do you long to see it in the future?
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 28). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
After recently discovering your substack, I just bought the book and am playing catch-up on these posts. This chapter resonated with me in my current situation as a seminarian. Having completed my first year of seminary, it was harder than I was prepared for. Not the work so much as everything else: balancing family and work (I am in a hybrid program so I'm still working full-time) with school, maintaining spiritual disciplines, engaging in ministry in new ways, and all the deeper work that seminary brings up. It is easy to fall into the trap of looking forward to graduation and ordination, but I try to stay rooted in the present. To really take in and absorb what I am doing now and the way I am being formed in this moment. The quote she shares about "winning deep" from Pippa Grange at the end really resonated: being "attached to the joy and the struggle...to the mess...done from a soul level."