Hope Manifesto

Two weeks ago, on House, M.D., everybody’s favorite doctor was treating a soap opera actor with an unknown, rare, and deadly illness (go figure). The sick soap star was spending hours in the hospital bed reflecting on his life and choices thus far and vowing to be different if he survives, whatever it is, that is ravaging his weak body. As the dying man looked at the physician, eagerly waiting to hear his prognosis after the latest round of tests, our lovable Dr. House stared him in the face and said, “Hope is for sissies.”

I have a close friend who is suffering right now. His wife just left him, and the world looks very different than it did six months ago. Every time we talk, we cry, and I so deeply feel his pain. So, why do I ask him every couple of days, “How are you?” Do I want him to feel more pain? Am I rubbing salt in his wounds? No, I simply know that stories change, that my friend may have new insights and feelings since yesterday, that people reverse decisions, that God uses time to heal, and that the facts aren’t always the facts. I have hope.

Hope is not for the jaded, self-sufficient, reality bound, just-suck-it-up types - although it is still available to them. No, hope is more for dying soap opera actors with no way out, but who plan for a better future anyway. It is for men who are eating dinner alone because their families are gone, but persist in loving their absent wives anyway.

Hope is for people who helplessly look at the enormous problems in the world, but go cut their elderly neighbor’s lawn anyway. Hope is for people who fret about the end of the planet, but plant the sapling anyway. Hope is for people who watch the evening news in disbelief, but yield in traffic to let someone else get ahead anyway. Hope is for sissies.

Consider Jesus’ first followers after the crucifixion. Huddled together, afraid and desperate, paranoid and disheartened, yet they went to the tomb to care for His body anyway. They found unexpected, world-changing, resurrecting hope.

Hey, Rick. Hope is for sissies, my friend. Keep doing the right thing, anyway. Easter is on its way.


So, will Dr. House ever learn a thing or two about compassion and vulnerability and respect and openness? Will his terrible bedside manner ever improve?

Oh, I hope not.