Hope is a funny thing … it’s based on intangible things — timing, logistics, materiel, and gumption. Wait! The whole list is of things that are measurable and attainable, but gumption? The working definition of gumption is something like “stick-toit-iveness”; that can’t be measured, because it would be different depending on the variable for each person. And yet, gumption is vitally dependent on hope. The stronger you hope for something, the more gumption you should have; should have. Oftentimes, however, we find that it’s the other way around.

The more we want something, the less we want to stick it out until we achieve it. We become fidgety; we become disheartened; we become less hopeful.

Whoa! Less hopeful? But I am waiting for this! I need this!

How can I be less hopeful? The process of life is one that is more based on the unknowing than the knowing. Do we all know perfectly how a car works? Perhaps not, but we hope it does when we need to get somewhere quickly. Do we truly know how electricity works? Perhaps, but our hope that it works depends solely on an immeasurable amount of unknowing.

Ah, but once a thing hoped for is attained, then all the work and worry, the doubt and the times of unstickyness are all forgotten and we can bask in the victory of the attaining of whatever we were hoping for.

The truth of our Lord’s rising from death is the bedrock of our hope. We hope the same for our loved ones, neighbors, our friends, and us. We hope because we are wired that way. But the times of unstickyness in the hoping for resurrected life need not weigh us down with apprehension or doubt. It’s real! And we have our Resurrected Lord to stand our hope upon.

May this Easter be the time where the world wakes up to find more hope. May you be the beacon of hope in the lives of as many people as you can ge to – Jesus lives!

— Fr. Stan