Hope Is A Trickster
I've heard it said that hope is a trickster.
Hope is not the opposite of hopelessness; it dances with it, wraps it in a mischievous embrace, and welcomes its depths with a wholehearted devotion. The trickster knows that true resilience cannot grow from the rigidity of binaries but only from embracing the wholeness of life’s paradoxes. It is through this wholehearted surrender to life’s messiness that we can cultivate roots deep enough to ground our growth in the shifting soil of uncertainty.
Personally, I have wrestled deeply with keeping hope alive during these unprecedented times of upheaval. The questions we face are staggering. There is so much to repair, so much broken-heartedness to mend, and such immense mystery to be befriended.
Krista Tippett says that hope is brokenhearted on its way to becoming wholehearted.
Her words awaken a tender curiosity within me. Am I willing to orient myself, again and again, toward wholehearted living? What does that truly mean? And why does it matter?
Life's drama pulls us ever outward into its untamed expanse. Whether we admit it or not, we are consistently drawn into the wildness of our hearts where paradox grows abundant. I think that this gives most of us a bewildered pause. It certainly does for me.
Perhaps bewilderment is not a flaw in the design but a vital part of it—a necessary force that keeps us humble, open, creative, and alive.
Hope as a trickster embodies this bewilderment, coaxing us to stay with the questions, to trust that the wildness is teeming with wisdom.
Krista also reminds us that hope inspires goodness to reveal itself and that “taking in the good” is a virtue of living well.
Yet, truly taking in the good requires courage—the willingness to feel into and bear witness to what we might deem its opposite.
In this way, hope becomes more than a fleeting feeling. It becomes an orientation to life, a profound privilege and responsibility—a power capable, perhaps, of shifting the world on its axis.