- Henri J.M. Nouwen
Over the years of my ministry, colleagues and friends have made comment or raised questions about what the church or Christian faith has to offer of any real value. In the latter years of my full-time career, my answer to that invariably focused on love and hope. These are terms that, regrettably, are too widely and too casually used. Someone 'loves' that car. She just 'loves' her new shoes. I 'hope' I win this time. They 'hope' their daughter gets into that college. As the quote from Henri Nouwen, above, would indicate, neither hope nor love should be so lightly understood or used in conversation.
For me, any hope for the future – kindled by our faith or whatever – is completely dependent on our willingness to embrace change – the unknown, perhaps even that which we at this point might even fear. I purposely used the word 'embrace' in the previous sentence because I think we have to love the coming change. By that, I mean we have to be so intimately involved in seeking and discerning and helping to create what is unfolding around us that when it is complete our hope will be rewarded by the knowledge that this is good, we need not fear, there is a way forward.
Of course, that is difficult to do when we are still more or less comfortable in and with what we know and now experience. We are not fully comfortable and, therefore, keep hoping for something different, something better. We won't know when we have arrived at the different and better unless we go through the totally uncomfortable, the seemingly hopeless, the relative unknown and fully embrace what is yet to be revealed.
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