Hope

In all of this search for elusive faith, maybe I realy needed to start with hope instead.  I don’t know if I really have faith right now, but I feel like I have hope. And I feel like this is a big deal.

I grew up Mormon, which means the focus is on faith and testimony.  Hope isn’t given a prominent place.  I mean, it’s in the scriptures and everything, but it doesn’t really figure prominently into the Plan of Salvation unless its equated with Alma’s “desire to believe.”  But I don’t think hope is necessarily merely a lesser, subordinate or stepping-stone to the superior faith.  I think hope might be something completely independent of faith, but really important.

Is hope the same thing as “wishful thinking” which I’ve been extremely wary about? Maybe. Maybe it’s the other side of wishful thinking. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking from another perspective. Maybe the difference is what you do with it, how you react to it, that makes the difference between wishful thinking and hope.

I have nothing that looks even remotely like faith.  But I think hope is something that I can muster.  I wonder if that’s enough to get started with?