Hope: A User’s Manual

“How do we cultivate hope to face each day, even when our efforts don’t bear fruit?” asks pastor McKibben Dana (Sabbath in the Suburbs) in this fitfully sage outing. She uses personal anecdotes, biblical analysis, and pop culture references to lay out a faith-centric vision of hope and offers practices to cultivate it. Reflecting on how narratives shape hope, McKibben Dana breaks down the plots of the films Superman and The Avengers to explore how stories either end with a return to the status quo or with the world “forever changed,” though she frustratingly neglects to spell out how these observations relate to hope. More usefully, the author encourages readers to keep their spirits up by breaking big problems into “small, bite-sized pieces that slowly but surely move us forward.” To illustrate, she recounts when she and other members of the Presbyterian general assembly posted bail for 36 people who could not otherwise afford it, effecting local change even as bail reform remained out of reach. Reflection questions urge readers to consider “when the going gets tough, where do you put your focus?” and to “react to the idea of hope and despair dwelling together.” While the author’s tendency to hint at rather than state her takeaways can be irksome, such wisdom as “hope is what we do in the face of suffering, pain, and injustice” connects. Readers will appreciate the depth of thought. (Sept.)