Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 8
“The wind blows wherever it pleases,” Jesus once said to Nicodemus, “You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.” (John 3:8 NIV) As I am writing this I look out the window and watch the last of the lovely...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 7
Scott Russell Sanders tells a charming story about his daughter’s wedding. He is in the vestibule of the church with the wedding party. “Clumsy in my rented finery–patent leather shoes that are a size too small and starched shirt and stiff black...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 6
Just down the road from my home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts is the Hancock Shaker Village, a living history museum on the site of a former Shaker community. It is a beautiful spot, with oft-photographed buildings such as this Round Stone Barn. Both my children...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 5
I try to imagine the prophet Amos at a fancy cocktail party. He would be that guy, who seeing your new Mercedes in the driveway, would be compelled to go into detail about global warming from greenhouse gases, then move on without a breath to discuss the appalling...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 4
I’ve been ruminating on this week’s theme of “faithfulness,” and its relationship to hope. When a movie, based on a book, is made, we ask “Is it faithful to the original.” Or when a copy of a work of art is reproduced its quality...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 3
In my post a couple of weeks ago I wrote about a kind of “functional atheism” (even in the church), that thinks the future depends entirely on us. Pastor Eric Elnes made this comment: “The term “functional atheism” resonates. Nothing...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 2
In his recent Skype conversation with Eric, Scott Sanders said that one of the main reasons we so need to hunt for hope today is because it is so easy to become hopeless in this information age. He made reference to the proliferation of news that stresses us and helps...
Blog, HOPE: A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE, Week 1
When my children were teenagers they got hold of my yearbook from senior year in high school and got a big chuckle when they saw that I had been named “class optimist.” They recognize me more as a Murphy’s Law, cup half-empty, kind of guy. If I...
