Rest in Hope

Sermon: December 28, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

Many of you may have noticed that my email signature begins with “In Hope,” then there’s my name and contact info, and it ends with this quote from one of my favorite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “What makes the desert beautiful, is that somewhere it hides a well.” This idea, that even in the harshest of conditions, even in the most dire of circumstances, beauty exists because of the possibility of goodness, of love, of salvation, is why Hope may be the most human of all emotions. In many ways it is what drives humanity toward growth and a better future. Just knowing things can be better, even if we don’t know exactly how to get there, even if we disagree on how to get there, keeps us moving forward. Hope inspires action, but how do we find the energy to improve our circumstances when hope is hard to come by? How do we overcome the inertia of hopelessness? And in the meantime, how can we muster just enough hope to rest in the comfort of possibility?

Hope is ever present if you know how to look. Like the light that emanates from a single candle, which seems to have no power in a well lit room, Hope shines brightest in darkness. There will be times when you don’t think the light is there, perhaps because you’ve been plunged into darkness unexpectedly by life’s circumstances. However, with time, once you let your eyes adjust to the dark, the light appears as it always does. Sometimes hope lies merely in the trust that the light will return, that it is present, despite the fact that you momentarily can’t see it. Even in the darkness, you can rest if you know your momentary blindness will soon give way to hope.

Hope as refuge is a common theme in Abrahamic sacred texts. In the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 16: 18-19 says “Because the Lord is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.” 

Lamentations 3:21-22 says “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.”

In the New Testament, Hebrews 6:19 says “This hope, this eternal hope, we have as an anchor of the soul, a sure and steadfast anchor.” 

The Quran verse 3:139 says “So lose not heart, nor fall into despair: for you shall surely gain the upper hand if you are true in Faith.”

In the Abrahamic faiths, hope exists because of the promise of salvation through God or Allah. This can sustain many, helping them rest in the knowledge that although things may not be how they want them to be now, ultimately, at the very end, they will be with God and at peace. This is one of the reasons that the word “Hope” has been labeled a Christian notion. But what if you don’t believe in God or salvation? Without faith in God, how does one instill hope in one’s self and one’s life? 

Albert Camus said, “Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.” This is an interesting quote from someone who viewed traditional hope as a trap and “philosophical suicide.” But he believed in something he called “rebellious hope,” a theme he dove into in his 1951 book The Rebel, in which hope is cultivated by finding meaning through concrete actions, art, kindness, and upholding values in an indifferent world. Now, this is something UUs can get behind. We can also get behind science, which backs up the idea that hope can be cultivated.

Dr. Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, which has been doing research on the relationship between cynicism and hope. He argues that hope can be created through practices that encourage evidenced based, holistic views of life circumstances. He says that hope isn’t optimism or a blind faith that things will go well. It’s a belief that things can improve because we don’t know what the future holds. He believes that retaining a vision that things can improve is a helpful frame of mind for facing adversity. It’s knowing that when the lights go out, your eyes will adjust and the tiny light that is only visible in the dark will appear.

Dr. Zaki offers a few practices that can help cultivate hope:

#1: Fact-check your cynical feelings - We often go to absolutes when things turn negative. If we have a bad encounter with someone, suddenly “No one likes me.” If we fail a test once, then certainly “I’ll never pass this.” Feelings of despair can send us plummeting straight to the bottom of a dark, endless well. At times like these, it’s important to fact check yourself. Is it true that no one likes me? How many people do I get along well with versus how many people do I struggle with?.. Will I actually never pass this test? How often have I permanently failed tests prior to now?.. Keeping a holistic view of reality may surprise us by showing us how often things do work out. So the next time you think one of these kinds of thoughts, you should ask yourself, What data do I have for that claim? Is that feeling really something that I can defend?

Practice #2: Collect more social data - This means, talk to more people about these kind of life circumstances up close and personal. We all know that it is easy to be cynical when communicating through screens, but hope feels more natural when we communicate in person. And sharing our life circumstances with each other is the best way to learn that others have most likely experienced the same thing, have a similar story, and many of those stories turn out well… Personally, I experience this most often during times of health crises. Whenever I’m worried about something health related and I share it with others, I get comments in return like, “Oh, my aunt had that” or “That happened to me” and suddenly hope is looking me right in the face, delivered to me by someone else who has come to the other side of that health concern. Or at the least someone who has had a shared experience, which makes me feel less alone. So, collect social data, in person, so that other humans can help bring hope your way.  

#3: Practice “positive gossip” - We already do this when we share our joys along with our sorrows during service. This is an important practice that can change our general outlook toward the hopeful. Even in times of despair, there are things to celebrate. The more you talk about the positive, the more you realize positive things are happening all around you, all the time. Consistently reminding ourselves that humans are good can help us retain hope during times of despair.

These three practices, outlined by a psychologist, are actually in alignment with many faith practices. Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher, Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico says that even Buddhists, who may view hope as attachment to a desired outcome should have what she calls “Wise hope.”  She says we should “not see things unrealistically but rather see things as they are, including the truth of suffering—both its existence and our capacity to transform it. It’s when we realize we don’t know what will happen that this kind of hope comes alive; in that spaciousness of uncertainty is the very space we need to act.” Sometimes the darkness is the only place where we can see the light. 

Knowing that things will change, that there is always a potential for better circumstances, is almost like having faith in hope itself. Vaclav Havel was the blacklisted playwright and humanitarian who was a prominent figure in the Velvet Revolution that overturned Communism in Czechoslovakia. He then became the last president of Czechoslovakia and following that the first president of the Czech Republic in the 90’s. He describes Hope as “an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” Many of us are not going to be prominent figures in overthrowing communist regimes, but a similar relationship to Hope can play an important role in the work that we do accomplish. And even more, it can provide comfort when we need to rest during times of darkness. 

I leave you with a haiku written by a personal friend of mine, an elderly Chinese man named Ray Fay whose life began during the Japanese invasion of China in the early 40’s. His mother cut off her hair and dressed as a boy to evade predatory Japanese soldiers and she kept Ray in a Rosewood cedar chest for many of his first 18 months of his life so his cries wouldn’t alert any soldiers of their presence. His family escaped to America during the following Communist revolution and he worked his way from a poor immigrant to one of San Francisco’s leading kidney transplant and gender affirming surgeons. His story is one of profound trauma and healing. Now, in his late 80’s, he has turned to haiku to express his thoughts. This one that speaks of resting in hope is my favorite:

Cocoon if you must.

Love waits on the other side.

Fly when you see light. 

May we all experience the safety of a cocoon during times of darkness and may we all know that love awaits us when the light of hope beckons us to fly.

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

L.R. Knost:

“Peace is not the end of the mundane, troublesome, and painful moments of life. Peace is found in the midst of the mundane, troublesome, and painful moments of life as we look for the good in all things, grasp tiny moments of joy glittering in the darkness, and gather hope into a soft place to rest when life grows hard and our spirit grows weary in the journey.”

C. Joybell C.:

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings, and the knowledge that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”