HOPE MONTH: DAY 8: “To have hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover. That’s not easy, but the basic Yes, the conviction that God has created men, that he stands behind them, that they aren’t simply negative, gives love a reference point that enables it to ground hope on the basis of faith.”― Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
What a beautiful quote to work with! It imbues the kind of hope I feel when I think of this journey in recovery.
I am not a big fan of the concept of evil, because, as I have written before, I attribute all things considered “evil” to Ego. For me that is a more accurate word to use. As I see life, Ego incorporates all the sins and misdeeds of the world. And that gives me the ability to do as this quote says, to believe that all of it is in God’s hands, and that everything is created by God.
The hope I feel in these beliefs is that we can begin to choose different methods of believing and behaving once we see the choice is that of love or of fear. Of Spirit or of Ego. Of Heart or of Mind. You get my drift. A lovely quote for a lovely day…hope is alive and well!
Dolphin Hug 