Hope: A User's Manual

by MaryAnn McKibben Dana

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2022

Overview

What hope is, what hope isn’t, and how to find it in hopeless times.

Hope is not optimism. It’s not toxic positivity. It’s not a promise of future success or progress. And it’s definitely not something that can be reduced to a scripty-font platitude on an Instagram post.

So what is it?

One thing is certain: real hope demands that we do something with it. That we live it out. That we use hope to participate in a bigger story playing out behind the bleak world we see on the news or in our social media feeds every day.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a person of faith, or someone disillusioned with faith, or someone who hardly ever thinks about faith: if you’re a human being who longs for a spiritual counternarrative to live by, this book points to one resilient enough to endure crises and crushing defeats. If you’re tired of hearing about some heavenly hereafter amid the pressing need for justice here and now, this is a book about hope for this world—not the next.

After exploring what hope isn’t and then what it is, MaryAnn McKibben Dana reflects on the surprising place where hope is often found—in the messiness of our imperfect, flawed, beautiful human bodies. In the second half of the book, she talks about making hope real: sharing hope through stories, cultivating hope through simple practices, and nurturing hope in hopeless times—when only real hope can persevere.

Key Features

• Explores the meaning of hope in this present world
• Reflects on the surprising place where hope is often found
• Talks about making hope real

Contents

Section One: What Hope Is Not

• Hope Is Not a Prediction
• Hope Is Not Optimism
• Hope Is Not Charging into the Future
• Hope Is Not Toxic Positivity
• Hope Is Not Cause and Effect
• Hope Is Not the Opposite of Despair
• Hope Is Not Solace
• Hope Is Not Future-Proofing

Section Two: What Hope Is

• Hope Is What We Do
• Hope Is Outmatched
• Hope Is Enough
• Hope Accepts and Refuses to Accept
• Hope Is Either On or Off
• Hope Holds Things Loosely
• Hope Is the Long View

Section Three: Hope Lives in the Body

• To Comfort and to Care
• Right of Repair
• The Power of Anger
• Shock, Silence, Stillness
• It Doesn’t Get Easier
• Trauma = Pain + Confusion
• Low Battery Mode
• Hope Enters the Body through Joy

Section Four: Hope Travels in Story

• Something to Live For
• Telling the Right Kind of Story
• Shifting the Point of View
• Proximate Purpose
• Hopeful Stories Need Tricksters
• Rethinking (Happy) Endings

Section Five: The Practice of Hope

• The Practice of Pointing the Compass
• The Practice of Ten Things
• The Practice of Finding What’s Stable
• The Practice of Surviving the Winter
• The Practice of Going Back to Basics
• The Practice of Doing It Yourself
• The Practice of the Big Three
• The Practice of Writing Fiction
• The Practice of Pulling Up the Anchor

Section Six: Hope Beyond Hope

• Hope as Protest
• Navigating the Three Ds
• In Praise of Slow and Sloppy
• Persevere, Rest, Persevere
• Moving through It
• Go until No
• It’s Already Over
• Stay in the Storm

Product Details

• Title: Hope: A User’s Manual
• Author: MaryAnn McKibben Dana
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 179
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Hope › Religious aspects--Christianity--Miscellanea
• ISBNs: 9780802882318, 0802882315
• Resource ID: LLS:HOPEAUSERSMANUAL
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:34:50Z

About MaryAnn McKibben Dana

MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, speaker, pastor, and the author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family's Experiment with Holy Time. An avid student and champion of improvisational theater, she prides herself on her ability to get even stodgy groups playing together and reflecting on life as improv.