Always be prepared to give reason for the hope in you.
1 Peter 3: 13
“My hope is a little thin these days,” confessed my coworker. “Finding it is really difficult.” Perhaps some of us can relate. I like to begin each board meeting with a question for our members to ponder and answer. Everyone gets a minute to share a brief reflection on the selected topic. I enjoy these moments. They build connection. Communal pauses are important. Stopping and listening to what’s on our colleague’s hearts and minds matters. Recently I asked the board, “Where do you find hope?”
I’m thinking a lot about hope because my friend Dr. Steven Trzeick gave a brilliant lecture last week about the “science of hope.” Yes, Steve is a man of faith. He’s also a scientist who digests academic research in an effort to find empirical evidence of hope’s impact on human lives. According to Steve, our country is experiencing a crisis of hope. Statistics are frightening. Staggering, in fact. “Rates of depression and anxiety have doubled since 2000,’ he shared. “44 percent of young people now report experiencing feelings of hopelessness about the future, a 40 percent increase since 2009.” What’s going on? It gets worse. “The incremental increase in “deaths of despair’ among young working-class American men has risen so dramatically since 2004. We have lost an incremental 400,00 men, the same number of men the US lost in World War II. Deaths from suicide, alcohol and drug overdose among women 24-44 has risen by roughly 60% since 2000.
But how can this be? “For the first time in history,” notes Yuval Noah Harari, “more people die from eating too much than eating too little.” So maybe Jesus was onto something when he memorably noted that “people shall not live by bread alone.” Food only, and the accumulation of stuff, doesn’t provide humans all that’s needed for a fulfilling life. Could hope be the answer?
Steve argues people with high levels of hope live longer, have better mental and physical health outcomes, enjoy higher levels of academic and professional success and even have higher survival rates from cancer and heart attacks. Hope is more than a sentimental emotion. “Like oxygen is to the lungs,” wrote Emil Bruner, “such is hope to the meaning of life.” Hope matters!
As I surveyed board members and colleagues this past week, I discovered a couple of themes.
Hopeful people live with intentionally. Hopeful people believe a better future is possible and feel they have some agency in the creation of a better future. Hope is not passive!
Hope is also contagious. It is transmitted through human relationships. When surrounded by hopeful people, doing hopeful things in the world…we become more hopeful. Repeatedly my friends shared how small acts of compassion, courage and love by neighbors and co-workers filled them with hope. As Dr. Steve says, “Hope is a team sport.”
At its deepest level, Lent follows the Christ story—a story riddled with despair, betrayal, sadness and violence. Yet there is improbable hope good news at the culmination of the story. We know that it ends with Easter. And that’s hopeful, even when hope can seem a little thin.
Dr. Bruce Main
President and Founder
Urban Promise and Urban Promise International
Camden New Jersey