Hope: A User's Manual - Softcover

McKibben Dana, MaryAnn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802882315 ISBN 13: 9780802882318

Publisher: Eerdmans, 2022

Synopsis

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

How do we cultivate hope to face each day? How do we find the energy to persevere, knowing things don't always work out OK, no matter what the platitudes say? How do we pursue the work of justice, knowing that the task is too big for any of us?
 
This book addresses these questions. It's MaryAnn's attempt to write herself back into a sense of hope after a grueling few years of life and world events.
 
Though this is not a pandemic book, readers will see COVID-19's hulking presence from time to time, as well as the looming specter of climate change and the urgent work of confronting racial and economic injustice. Also braided in these pages is MaryAnn's experience walking with her daughter through a debilitating depression. The family found hope hiding in unexpected nooks and crannies in that journey; but hope also lurks in tattooed wisdom from a beloved children's book and in Marvel movies, on the running trail and in a sweater full of holes.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Sections include:
What Hope Is Not
What Hope Is
Hope Lives in the Body
Hope Travels in Story
The Practice of Hope
Hope Beyond Hope

About this title

About the Author

 

MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, pastor, speaker, and ministry coach living in Virginia. She is the author of God, Improv, and the Art of Living and Sabbath in the Suburbs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802882315
• ISBN 13: 9780802882318
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 189