Sunday Best – January 9, 2022 (plus winter book list!)
I am a prisoner of hope. – Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Amidst all of the reflections about the extraordinary life and service of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (like this one from the terrific OnBeing), it’s Mary Robinson’s recollection of this quote that struck me the most.
Not an optimist, and not merely hopeful.
A prisoner of hope.
Dear ones, in a cynical world with such obvious challenges, it can feel foolish to be hopeful. But the kind of hope Archbishop Tutu had is not a fluffy cotton candy version. It is a deep-rooted conviction that the world is worthy of our devotion, and that we are worthy of its bounty, even when – especially when – neither of those is evident.
In the middle of all the heartaches and bruises and trauma, we have a baby’s first steps, or the first daffodil in spring, or this scene of Schitt’s Creek. We have new people and new movements and new inventions. We have Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Alexander Calder’s sculptures and Dolly Parton’s songs. We have pine trees and rainbow trout and and granite boulders. We have the laughter of an Archbishop who has witnessed more violence and adversity and injustice than most of us can even imagine.
We have possibility.
We have hope.
A clip of Archbishop Tutu with Mary Robinson can be found below, along with our winter book list. In an earlier post we explored a complementary view of hope from Vaclav Havel.