If my life today had been a movie, its title would have been ‘Surrounded by Hope’. It seemed everywhere I turned I either heard or saw the word hope. Not a bad message to have washing over you on this steamy, July day.

The not-so subliminal message began while listening to a CD of a lecture by church historian Diana Butler Bass. In describing a book she had recently read on the subject and study of happiness, she quoted the author as saying there are basically three things that need to be present in a person’s life for them to describe their living as happy: Meaningful work. Meaningful relationships. A sense of hope in the future.

While I was listening to this CD, I was making my rounds of some Twin Cities hospitals as I visited church members following surgery or illness. As I continued to listen to Bass speak, my eyes fell on a mural painted along a wall on the freeway: Hope is Life. Colorful swirls of paint flew out from this roadside message making the words seem to dance in the deathly heat rising from the asphalt. Hope certainly had my attention now.

Moments later MPR radio host Kerri Miller announced that Bishop John Shelby Spong and Sister Joan Chittister were going to be on her radio show talking about, what else? Hope! I began to think there was some kind of cosmic conspiracy drawing me into its vortex ready to brainwash me to the virtues of hope. But then I woke up and told myself that I was not the only person needing this message, needing to have this unwieldy word unpacked. So I looked at the other drivers in their cars and began to believe that they too were receiving the same message: Hope. Hope. Hope. We were, all of us, linked by a common message. It made me feel, well, hopeful.

It is fair to say that the last few weeks have been not quite so hopeful. With both our state and federal governments unable to play well with each other, it has led to some dismal conversations around supper tables and at coffee shops. As the people of Africa once again are gripped in a horrific drought and we see images of children dying in the arms of parents and caregivers, it is easy to move into despair. When we allow ourselves to think about the vast extremes of weather around the world which points to the kind of climate change scientists have warned would happen, it can cause many of us to place our heads in our hands in grief. For me personally,all this global pain,accompanied by several situations in the lives of friends and in our church community, have created a climate where it could become easy to be taken to the depths.

So for whatever reason the Universe decided to open my eyes to hope today. Not only did the word show up in countless places and conversations. It also showed up as I witnessed a hospital worker in navy scrubs walk into the quiet, candlelit chapel and sit down to pray. Its face was shining forth in the gardens planted by the Sisters of St. Joseph where I had a meeting today. Flowers planted in circles, vegetables reaching toward heaven, neatly tended soil shown forth the work of both Creator and co-creator. In a moment between meetings, I held a baby we recently baptized. She proudly showed me her shiny, new tooth and boldly waved goodbye knowing we all believed her to be both beautiful and brilliant and, most certainly, loved.

Hope, I have come to understand, is not something we have or don’t. It is something we choose. And so today I choose hope? What messages are you choosing these days? For what do you hope? If what the book that Diana Butler Bass was quoting is true, our ability to hope is directly tied to our ability to be happy. Are you willing go choose hope, to be happy, and to have the courage to help your hopes take wing?

It seems to me the alternative is not so promising. So, I’m in. Are you?