A week ago, I sat in a meeting with our bishop as we grappled together with the action and the inaction of the every-four-year gathering of the people called United Methodists. This event happened in Portland, Oregon and brought with it what now seems like its quadrennial dose of angst and hand-wringing. It is not an easy task to be human. To be the church. To be a church dedicated to living in a global way with people whose life experiences and understanding of the Holy are so very different. A kind of difference that most often draws lines in the sand rather than compelling hands to reach out. 
As the bishop gave his opening remarks that would set the stage for what we hope would be healthy, helpful conversations, he said something, two words really, that grabbed me and have not let me go. It may have been a throw away two words for him. I don’t know. Maybe they were specifically chosen for their impact. All I do know is that after he said them I was unable to really listen to the next few minutes of what he was saying. Instead, my thoughts, hung on this statement: “It is my heart-hope…” 

It is my heart-hope. I thought of what it means to have ‘heart-hope’. This is not the hope that can be grounded on what sends a person to thinking…to believing..all things done with mind-hope. In my way of seeing, I can hope in all kinds of ways. Mind-hope is often based in knowledge, in angling with statistical probability. “Given what I know and the odds in this situation, I hope this will…turn out well…will solve the problem…will prove I am right. ” This hope stays floating someplace above the shoulders in a foggy, cloudy presence waiting to land on whatever will receive it.

Heart-hope is also not an experience that finds its roots in what can be defined by creed or doctrine or even good old common sense. The right words rarely feed heart-hope and do not give it wings to fly. Saying whatever seem to be right words, even multiple times and for years, also do not give birth to heat-hope. With heart-hope, it is never a recipe of do A, then B and, hopefully, C will inevitably happen.

No. The kind of deep longing we can call heart-hope finds its home in the very depths of who we are. It finds its home in the muscle that sits in our chest and throbs with our very lives. It is moved by passion and love. Yes, it gets broken over and over again and yet we work like anything to mend it, one beloved breath at a time. Heart-hope is fueled by faith, however we name that, and is the stuff of miracles…those acts that confound us and have us looking over our shoulder for the More who must have shown up without our seeing, without our knowing.Heart-hope is the riskiest of business because, in it, we have the most to lose.

What are your heart-hopes? I have heart-hopes, deep, enormous heart-hopes. Many of them surround my children and those I love fiercely. Other heat-hopes are directed toward injustices I witness in this world…those that bump up against the lives of other people’s children, young and old alike. Still other hear-hopes are held for our nation, the world, this beloved planet and even this church to which I chose to hitch my star. So many heart-hopes.

The desert monk and wise one, Abba Poemen, gently warned those wrestling with their own ancient heart-hope: “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.” As I continue to hear the bishop’s words ringing in my ears, I pray that I may have the courage to allow these deep hopes to settle into that place of Wisdom that travels with each of us if we have presence of heart to listen.i pray that his heart-hopes lie gentle in his chest as he offers his work and his very life to this church he visibly loves. I pray that I may allow the heart-hope that beats deep within to be true and authentic and that I honor that in each person I meet even if our respective heart-hopes do not seem to want to dance with one another. Perhaps when we each hold our heart-hopes as sacred we might move to a place of satisfying the Heart of All.