hope

3 things in particular have given me hope lately.

When I published my last post about my questions I was really nervous about the response I might get, but I really wanted an outlet to be real and say what I was thinking. And I am so glad I did. Several friends have shared that they are in the same place and many more, who may not be the that place, just gave me the freedom to be real and to wrestle through this.

I recently read a book called "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren. It was really good. It asked a lot of the same questions I have been recently facing and it did so gracefully, sans the twinge of cynicism that my questions have been coming with.

I also saw the video below a couple of weeks ago; it is possibly the most beautiful and hopeful thing I have seen in a really long time. I really identified with it.

When the country we lived in hosted the Olympics, they built walls of lovely fake buildings and homes to hide the slums that could be seen from the highways and trains. Tourists were satisfied by the fact that they didn't have to face the reality of poverty, even though they knew it existed. I find hope in the fact that I'm not the only one who can no longer live with the paper-thin wall of religious answers constructed in front of the slums of reality. If there are people writing books and making films like these then there is a movement, and on the edge of the movement is the possibility for real, lasting change.