Christian hope...

What does it mean to be a person of hope? Does hope affect my understanding of Christianity?

I am getting ready to lead a four week conversation (with another grad student)on the meaning of Christian hope. It will be a dialouge based on the papal encyclical Spe Salve (On Christian Hope). For those who don't know me, I tend to be a bit skeptical of our current Holy Father in Rome. I am still deciding how much i "dig" this encyclical. What I do appreciate is the conversations that I have had with others about hope.

It is easy and even a bit superficial to insist that we are "a people of Hope". I use the word superficial, because I am not really sure what that means...I need some more words around that. I know what I imply when I choose to say that I am a person of hope. I mean to imply that regardless of how wretched I feel, of the day that I have had, the sickness in my heart, the ailment of my body, I have been redeemed. I have been saved, I have known true love. Because I have known hope I have known love. Because I have recognized love, I have known hope.

I was telling a friend today that I was at Liturgy yesterday at the abbey, and when Fr. Dale (I think) was elevating the host at the consecration a thought popped into my head. I thought, "In order to truly experience love- true love, I have to be completely vulnerable. In that vulnerability is the insistence or need to prepare for great pain if the relationship does not work." But it is because we are naturally people of hope that we continue to engage and be in relationships (romantic and otherwise) with each other. We also should recognize the role that God plays in the dynamic of relationships with each other.

Hope...it is not just another four letter word.