Sunday, August 16, 2026: I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang. - Greg Boyle

Participatory Hope: I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang 

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.  - Desmond Tutu

I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang. - Greg Boyle

I believe we must be free to say “yes” before we say “no,” but most of us aren’t that free. Our first response is normally dualistic, negative, and probably even fear based. We often respond initially with something like: “I don’t trust that. I don’t like that. I don’t want that.” 

The word “yes” before “no” allows for some enthusiasm (en-theos in Greek), which means “filled with God.” I’m encouraging an enthusiasm that is based on intelligence, wisdom, and the great gift of hope.

Hope is a participation in the very life of God. It has nothing to do with circumstances or events going well. It can even thrive in the midst of adversity and trial. 

True faith, which always includes hope and love, is a predisposition to “yes.” I would go so far as to say that a foundational “yes” is the most distinguishing element between an ego- and fear-based agenda and a Spirit-guided one. As Paul writes of Jesus, “With him it was always ‘yes,’ and however many the promises God made, the ‘yes’ to them all, is in him” (2 Corinthians 1:19–20).

It’s the easiest thing in the world to stand on a pedestal of superiority and point out who and what is wrong—without doing anything positive or becoming a positive answer ourselves. After we criticize and deconstruct, what are we actually for? Deconstruction comes naturally to most of us, but deconstruction is rather useless without reconstruction and a positive vision.

An awful lot of activists on the left and reactionaries on the right have no positive vision, nothing they believe in, no one they are in love with. They are just overwhelmed with what’s wrong and think that by eliminating the so-called “contaminating element,” the world will be just, peaceful, and right again.

The book of Proverbs says that without a positive vision the people will perish (see 29:18). What the gospel, true religion, and true mythology give us is a cosmic and positive vision, inside of which the soul can live safely. That’s the only place from which lasting change ever comes. Jesus’s term for that totally positive vision—not against anybody or expelling anything—is the reign of God.

Reflection by Richard Rohr