'We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn't hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But if we hope for what we don't see, we wait for it with patience! Romans 8:24-25

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Princess Leia received a transmission and when asked what was sent, she responded simply, 'Hope! If you are a Star Wars fan, you might recognize that as one of the final lines in Rogue One, the movie that directly leads into Star Wars IV: A New Hope. And SPOILER ALERT! (That 'hope' allowed Luke Skywalker to destroy the Death Star.)

Hope is not just a feeling or naive optimism. It is a deep conviction that refuses to let death and injustice have the final say. Hope is not passive. It is not waiting. It is active, and it is persevering. Hope cries for our pain, peacefully resists, and keeps showing up time and time again. Hope is not something that exists in a vacuum-hope is found in community, in our pain, in our joy, in our cries of protest.

Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes the abolitionist Theodore Parker when he says, 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice! This is something I believe to my core. This statement gives me hope, that even when there are setbacks along-and oh boy, there have been setbacks—we will achieve justice in the end.

Hope isn't what bends the moral arc of the universe, however. Hope is what allows us to latch onto the arc and pull it, twist it, and bend it toward justice. Hope is the spark that encourages us to continue to put in the work to build a better world so that all of us not only survive but thrive.

Just like the stars in our universe, hope is brightest in the dark. So don't let the darkness stop you. Let the light of hope guide you to the arc, and once you're there, latch onto it, and do what you can to help bend it, and twist it, and pull it towards justice.

Reflection by Jeremy Demarest