“This is why hope is such a difficult spiritual commandment…You have to risk looking stupid to live a hope-filled life, and there’s nothing I hate more than looking stupid.”

Count me among the stupid as well.

Courtney S., yes, some people seem to be thinking Obama in charge is the beginning of the end. He has been very villified in some circles, and I’ve been surprised by how intense some ofthe negative reactions have been.

Are people really feeling dire because of Obama’s election? I hadn’t got that out here in Tennessee. Strange. And since our ward is already quite challenged economically, we haven’t seen that much of a shift in the financial health of our members.

Pushing forward.

To those of you who’ve commented on hope, I’ve also thought that the scripture “Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they might have joy” was not so much a description—here’s life, have fun!—but a commandment. Men are (and women are) that they can figure out how to live a joy-filled life, despite all the tough stuff.

Bruce, thanks for the link. And Amanda, the world needs more people like you.

Michelle, I think people are nervous primarily because the economy seems so precarious right now. Retirement savings invested in the stock market are dwindling, homes are losing value, thousands of people are losing jobs. Add to that the undercurrent of tension that I think has been with us since 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have a recipe for anxiety in the US.

There are others who’ve been upset and/or afraid since the election. Although I don’t count myself among these people, I can also empathize and understand how political shifts tend to make people feel unsteady.

I was reading Stephen Robinson’s Following Christ the other day (fortuitously) and he makes the point of the dangers of extremism (political, intellectual, etc.) better than I could, so I’ll treat you to another quote:

“Right now [and remember, this book was published in 1995--wasn't everything supposedly hunky dory in 1995?? Anyway] there are many other voices, ‘alternate voices,’ vying for the attention of the Saints. There are social voices, intellectual voices, political voices, and yet other voices. For example, I have a friend who is now going through a difficult time. He is politically very intense. He is worried particularly about a ‘new world order’ and also about the end of the world. He sees Satanic conspiracies all around him, in world events, in the schools, in government, in society, and he can’t understand why the Church isn’t as intense and as concerned as he is about these threats. He spends a great deal of time trying to ‘warn’ members of the Church whom he believes to be asleep, and he privately wonders if the Church leadership aren’t also asleep. Basically, his thinking runs like this: ‘My church and my politics are telling me two different things, and I know my politics are true, so there must be something wrong with the Church.’ He won’t consider the other logical possibility: that the church might be true and his politics in need of adjustment. Nor does he recognize the incipient apostasy, the reversal of priorities and loyalty evident in this thinking. . . . Tragically, his politics have become the idol to which all else in his life must bow–even his commitment to the Church and his covenant with God.”

And to be clear, I think the above paragraph could apply to people of all political stripes.

So yes, there’s a lot going on that can make a person feel afraid. But it’s my goal to be a “person of faith and hope,” as Elder Perry describes.

This was wonderful to read, thanks Angela.