Day 16: Living like a new future is already here

As I’ve thought about how we know what to hope for, so far I’ve considered two things: people telling us what to hope for and our past experience telling us what to hope for.  These are pretty big buckets that cover a lot, but I do wonder if I’m missing something. I usually am. 

I wonder if there’s something ingrained in us that allows us to think on things we haven’t directly been told or experienced.  Something that lets us see a way that is not defined by our past, a better way, a bit more of the kingdom come, a teensy nudging toward justice or toward a righting of the scope. 

I’m thinking about the people who made a great difference in the world by believing it could be different … not just for them, but for everyone.  I’m thinking of Jesus and Ghandi and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr.  I’m thinking of Buddha and Sojourner and Muhammed and Mandela.  People who were able to imagine a vastly different world without much of a model to follow.  That’s a certain kind of person who sees the world a certain way.

Maybe it still all starts with the experience and the words, though.  These are people who pay close attention to what they’ve been told and what they’ve experienced, but something in them tells them not to believe either of those sources.  They can see a better way in the world.  I don’t know, though.  It’s more than that.  It’s like they live in the world today like it’s already the better world.  Like how Jesus paid attention and kind of left a trail of healing and love in his wake.  Like the new future is already here. 

Maybe that’s what the NT hope is – having such confidence in how things can be that you live it out around you in the day to day.  I think of hope as a distraction because it calls me away from the present, but if I recast hope to be a present day reality, an impulse to live better already rather than waiting for something else, maybe that’s something I could get behind.  That seems like a good way to heal and be productive for a larger good in the present moment.  In fact, it’s kind of the opposite of a distraction; it might actually be a focus.