“I hope all this COVID nonsense goes away after he’s elected!”
“I hope we find out who Q is!”
This year, 2020, will be a year for the history books! What a year — a year filled with millions of collective “I hope” statements such as the ones above. But hope is a rather elusive concept — one of those words that we all think we understand, but when asked to explain it, struggle to pin it down.
In 1828, Noah Webster defined hope like this, “A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. Hope differs from wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. Hope, therefore, always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.”
In other words, you will know a tree by its fruit. If the climactic result of all my hope for my life, my family, and my country culminates in fear, hatred, profanity, and anger, then it is likely not hope at all, it’s just desire or wishful thinking.
President Donald Trump and Q’anon have been, for many Christians, a so ...
