Hope, Optimism, Change and a Fresh Start

Yesterday David Cameron, launching the Tory election campaign in the UK, claimed that his party offers hope, optimism, change and a fresh start. 

Hope and optimism: don't they mean pretty much the same? I think not. We must not confuse hope with optimism. Optimism is passive. We believe that something better will happen. Hope is far more than that. It is a firmly held conviction that it is worth taking action to improve something; and for me it is grounded in spirituality and faith.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu tells us: “I've never been an optimist. I've always been a man of hope - I am a prisoner of hope…hope holds on even when things are seemingly doomed and dark.” “We must,” said Martin Luther King, “accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

In Christianity hope is one of the three great spiritual virtues or God given graces, of faith, hope and love. These form the foundation stones of the spiritual wisdoms that have served us well for 2000 years. For the sake of the world, as well as for UK society, the need to return to them is urgent!
And David Cameron surely understands that.

Barack Obama has a prayer he says for America today. It is for

“ hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all.” 


Amen