{brightness of hope}

"For some years, brothers and sisters, there has been an increasing and profound sense of existential despair in the world... Holocausts, famine, pestilence, and tides of refugees have taken a terrible toll on human hope, with much of that toll coming from man-made, avoidable disasters... despair comes of iniquity!"

"A coalition of consequences is emerging. As prophesied, the love of many waxes cold (see Matthew 24:12). Even those affectionally secure themselves can sense the chill in the air."

"Shame is often replaced by the arrogance of those morally adrift, including strutting celebrities whose outer boldness camouflages their inner emptiness. ...so much hollow laughter..."

"Just as doubt, despair, and desensitization go together, so do faith, hope, and charity. The latter, however, must be carefully and constantly nurtured, whereas despair, like dandelions, needs so little encouragement to sprout and spread. Despair comes so naturally to the natural man!"

"Significally, those who look forward to a next and better world are usually "anxiously engaged" in improving this one..."

..."brightness of hope" produces illuminated individuals. Their luminosity is seen, and things are also seen by it! Such hope permits us to "press forward" even when dark clouds oppress. Sometimes in the deepest darkness there is no external light - only an inner light to guide and to reassure."

"Hope helps us to walk by faith, not by sight. This can actually be safer."

"Genuine hope is urgently needed in order to be more loving even as the love of many waxes cold; more merciful, even when misunderstood or misrepresented; more holy, even as the world ripens in iniquity; more courteous and patient in a coarsening and curt world; and more full of heartfelt hope, even when other men's hearts fail them."

"Tower of Pisa is a persistent rebuke to architectural pessimism, so parental hope - by refusing to topple merely because of the gravity of the current family situation - is a repudiation of despair. Giving parents never give up hope!"

"Though otherwise "lively", hope stands quietly with us at funerals. Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair. Rather, they are tears of appreciation evoked by poignant separation. They will change, erelong, to tears of glorious anticipation. Yet the emptiness is so real and so restless it initiates a retroactive inventory of what is now so painfully missing, doing so, however, while forecasting fulness and resplendent reunion!"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

November 1994 Ensign