Hope: A shared responsibility

Jan 13, 2025
Hope.

In uncertain times, hope can feel fragile, but it remains essential. It’s up to the adults in the room to foster resilience and take practical steps to inspire and support future generations.

At my Sunday meeting for worship, the children return from their activities during the final minutes. Their whispers and shuffling ripple through the stillness like drops of rain on a calm lake – disruptive yet refreshing. Their presence is a reminder of vitality and renewal, a glimpse of the possibilities ahead. Their energy, curiosity, and unfiltered engagement with the world offer a quiet hope, but it is not theirs to carry. That responsibility rests with us, the adults, who must nurture a hope that is grounded in experience and paired with action.

The challenge of hope

In this day and age, hope can feel harder to hold on to. Climate change, inequality, misinformation, and polarisation demand solutions that go beyond individual effort. Hope isn’t about blind optimism or assuming things will simply get better; it’s about finding the courage to act, even when the way forward isn’t clear. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable, it begins to be useful”. This kind of hope is a deliberate act of resilience, a choice to persevere despite uncertainty.

Psychologists tell us that hope has a more positive effect on mental health than mindfulness, but it doesn’t just happen. Hope is found in the small, steady steps that add up over time, especially when they connect to broader movements for change. Younger generations are already leading efforts in activism and reform. The role of the older generation isn’t to lecture from above, but to collaborate, offering resources, networks, and experience. Together, these actions form the ripples that can lead to meaningful change.

As adults, we carry a dual responsibility: to demonstrate resilience and to address the systems we’ve helped create. Many of the challenges facing younger generations — climate crises, economic inequality, and misinformation — are the result of decisions made by those in power. Acknowledging this isn’t about blame, but about building trust and showing accountability.

Making hope real

The words of St Paul — faith, hope, and love — remind us that hope thrives in community. Faith sustains, love connects, and hope guides. But none of these virtues exist in isolation; they require effort. Faith without works falls flat, love without justice feels hollow, and hope without action leads nowhere.

We can draw inspiration from the Victorian engineers who faced the filth and chaos of London’s streets during cholera outbreaks. They didn’t wait for perfect solutions; they took practical steps to clean up the pipes, laying the groundwork for healthier, more sustainable systems. Today, our information systems, riddled with misinformation and polarisation, are not so different. Addressing these problems will require similarly determined and pragmatic action.

When we tell stories of resilience, it’s not to dwell on the past but to show that progress, however slow, is worth striving for. The children’s presence at the end of worship reminds me that hope is about continuity and renewal. Their ripples of energy and curiosity disrupt our stillness in a way that refreshes and restores, just as hope disrupts despair with the possibility of change. It’s not about simplifying the challenges ahead but facing them constructively.

The future is uncertain, but it’s one worth working for. Hope, like those ripples on the surface of a lake, spreads further than we might expect. It begins with us.

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