Choosing Hope and Tuna Tostadas

When Fuel the Body, Fuel the Soul met in February, Sister Rosario Bobadilla showed participants her recipe for homemade tuna tostadas. Following the recipe, Sister Lynn Levo gave a presentation entitled, “Choosing Hope, Not Despair.” Find the tuna tostada recipe and a recording of Sister Lynn’s presentation below!

Fuel the Body, Fuel the Soul is a monthly series held on Zoom. Each session features an introduction to a healthy recipe presented by a sister, a presentation focusing on a spiritual topic and discussion and prayer with a community of young women from around the country. There is no cost to attend.

Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4-5

Ingredients:

• 10 tostadas
• 3 cans of tuna
• 2 tbs of oil
• 1/2 of an onion
• lime juice
• 3 roma tomatoes
• 1 serrano pepper
• 1 avocado
• 1 head of lettuce
• 1/2 cup of cilantro
• 1 tbs of oregano
• 1 tbs of salt
• 1 tbs of black pepper

Directions: In a skillet, sauté diced onion, tomatoes and serrano pepper in oil for about 5 minutes. Add tuna, black pepper, salt, oregano, cilantro and the juice of the lime. Cook for about 10 minutes. Put tuna mixture on tostadas or tortilla shells. Add lettuce and avocado slices on top. Optional: add Mexican crema or sour cream. Serve and enjoy!

In the title of my talk, I wrote “Choosing Hope” because hope is a choice—and one that matters. I think it is so important that we understand that for hope we need to be active. Many people say we need to be optimistic, but Pope Francis said, “Optimism disappoints, hope does not.” I’m going to clarify what we mean when we say ‘hope’ and ‘optimism,’ so we can understand the difference.

So, what do we mean by hope? Have you ever thought about buying a lottery ticket? You know, I’d like to win, even just a million! You’re really not so much interested in the money, but in what the money can help you do. That’s what we mean when we talk about hope. Hope is a desire for something good to happen. When we hope for something, it is a hunger within us for more life. When we have this kind of hunger, we become aware of our dissatisfaction with who we are now and our desire for a future in which more life will enter our lives. We don’t want to put up with the current reality as we are living it personally, communally, as a country and even as a world. Hope encourages us to work for change. The future we desire won’t come by magic! It comes from choosing and acting.

Hope is a future-oriented, divinely-inspired dissatisfaction with what is…those who hope in Christ, can no longer put up with reality as it is—too many are suffering.

Jürgen Moltmann

We’re hoping that war will end. We hope that poverty will end. We’re hoping that there will be no racism and no discrimination. Jürgen Moltmann tells us that peace with God sometimes means conflict with the world that has evolved to where it is today, especially if we desire a promised future of oneness. This can only happen with work. How will we respond?

Hope is not optimism. Optimism is defined as being confident of the future or success of something irrespective of reality. One part of being hopeful is being able to name reality honestly. Hope is a feeling that something wanted might happen. It’s not a guarantee. Hope is confined to the desires of each one of us within the limits of reality. We’re not going to give up on reality, but we’re going to hope within the reality that we are facing.

So, how do we name our reality honestly? We live in a time of anxiety where threats to survival are numerous, and we are currently facing several forces of fragmentation. War, poverty, racism, hunger—many threats to survival. We’re facing a lot of fragmentation as well, in our country and even in our church. We’re dealing with a special class of issues that require new understandings, processes, tools and ‘buy in’ from everyone involved. For example, there are new understandings of diversity. We’re called to embrace and include those who are different than we are, and we need different processes and tools to fulfill that call. Self-awareness becomes critical.

Self-awareness, especially the embrace of our emotional life, human relationships and social interactions must be at the heart of coping with our complex and chaotic reality. We must ask ourselves: What story am I telling myself? Am I naming my reality honestly? Have I kind of gotten into a rut where I say there’s nothing I can do? What does my emotional life look like? What are some of the major feelings I’m living with? What are my relationships like? It’s so important to understand that hope cannot happen in isolation. Relationships are critical; they are the stuff of life. When we are supported by community and can name our reality honestly, we can break through any bubbles of illusion. Letting go of illusions or stuck ways of thinking frees our imagination and can give us fresh waves of energy, courage, generativity—giving life and helping us be hopeful.

In other words, hope is the refusal to accept the closed world of despair. When we despair, the world is closed, and we don’t see options. The prospect of possibility is something that we need to keep in mind as part of the journey that we’re on. It’s been assured to us by God as early as the Old Testament.

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the LORD—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

God has plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. How do we keep that in mind, especially on the tough days? We need to discover a new way, a dream that avoids both the resignation of despair and the suicide of resistance. We don’t want to just be about survival. We want a future that flourishes with values of honesty and welcoming and hospitality and memory and customs that are able to evolve. Theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, says, “A flourishing humanity on a thriving earth in an evolving universe, all together filled with the glory of God: such is the theological vision needed in this critical age of earth’s distress.” Being hopeful today is a humble stance we don’t have all the answers and a “radical trust in God’s promise and a clear recognition of what we don’t know but are willing to discover,” according to theologian Denis Edwards.

Alongside theology, psychology has also contributed to understanding and developing hope. What’s very interesting about psychology’s contribution is that it names hope as a part of being human. It’s built into who we are, so hope is reality based and active. It is a virtue, but all virtues are practiced. We need to be engaged in the work of hope. It’s powerful, the emotion of hope, and it arises from these big human longings for love, for success, for survival. Here, success means wanting to make a difference. It doesn’t mean “look at me and all my money.” Survival is the desire to live fully and freely.

There are four critical elements to developing hope. First, hope is about mastery, a feeling of empowerment, a sense of purpose that is collaborative and focused on higher goals. Hope is about know we have choices. We have to realize that we have something to say about our life. As soon as you say, “there’s nothing I can do; I don’t have any choices,” you can’t be hopeful. Second, hope is about attachment, a belief in the continued presence of a loved one, a mentor, a friend, a caring community. Hope does not happen in isolation, but among allies who foster a sense of connection, trust and openness. We are relational people. To be hopeful, we have to matter to someone, and someone has to matter to us. We absolutely need to be in relationship with others. Third, hope is about caring for self, knowing how to deal with stress and uncertainty, possessing a sense of resilience and living a balanced life. This is critical, especially for people in ministry. In order to be in relationship with others and have hope, we need to care for ourselves. Finally—and remember these are the psychologists talking—hope is spiritual. It’s having a sense of meaning in life, a connection to something greater. There is hope in the belief of a benign and loving Creator who wants the best for us. Hope has a spiritual dimension, or we might call it a faith dimension. Hope is choice, connection, self-care and belief in a higher power.

Hopelessness, on the other hand, is the inability to generate a possible future. Hopelessness has many faces: doom, alienation, powerlessness, helplessness. It is feeling captive, frustrated, uninspired, oppressed and limited. Hopelessness, for many, is a factor in depression. We say, “Oh, this will never work.” People experience hopelessness when they feel like they don’t have a choice, or when they feel like they don’t have any ability to impact a situation. They don’t feel connected. Hopelessness wears on the mind, body and spirit, leading to an inability to envision alternatives and be creative and flexible. It becomes extremely hard to live in the present and plan for the future. Think about how much of that hopelessness is around us in our world. We are called now more than ever to have an open mind, an open heart and an open will in order to counteract cynicism, withdrawal, mistrust and isolation.

So, how do we rebuild hope? First, we need to unearth, challenge and replace irrational beliefs and ways of thinking, especially irrational beliefs about ourselves. “I’m stuck here. I can’t make any changes. It’s just the way it is. It’s all up to me.” We are not stuck. We can affect change. There is a possibility of a brighter future, and it is the work of the collective. Second, we must develop supportive, caring, mutual, empowering and liberating relationships that supply what is necessary for life: trust, caring, belonging, courage, confidence and endurance. We need relationships that help us to live fully, live freely and to be our best selves. Third, we must encourage spiritual practices that strengthen faith and connection with a loving God. Talk to God about not just what you think, but how you feel, using your own words. Fourth, we must build up our resilience. If we learn how to cope with stress and anxiety, we can bounce back from crises and maintain equilibrium in the midst of chaos. Resilience helps us live a more balanced life. Finally, we must name and address our fears. Fear is probably the biggest obstacle. We get caught up in fear, from a fear of being ourselves to a fear of loss.

For my final thoughts, I want to talk about hope as a ministry. We will thrive in hope if we help others be hopeful. There’s that old phrase: “Give what you want to receive.” What better way to be generative—to give life in today’s world, a world that often feels hopeless and despairing. We can mentor hope in others, and we can do it by offering three things. The first is availability. Hope providers make time, share space and remain flexible. They are sensitive to the emotional cues of others and able to anticipate needs. The second thing is presence and openness. We are present when we are focused, offering quality time to the other. We’re learning more and more about the need for psychological safety in order for a person to be themselves, share who they are and be in relationship with others. We must also make sure our words match our actions. Finally, hope as ministry is contact that leaves a hopeful imprint. When we are a potent presence, not afraid of being ourselves and providing the appropriate sentiment when it is most needed with repeated involvement, we can help others incorporate positive and sustaining images that permeate to their core in time.

Doing advocacy for good causes is urgent. But more urgent, in my view, is the nurture of venues of obedient imagination in which unuttered possibility is uttered, thoughts beyond our thoughts are thought, and ways beyond our ways are known (Isaiah 55:8-9). In such circumstance, walking by sight is likely a return to the old ways that have failed. Walking by faith is to seek a world other than the one from which we are being swiftly ejected (Hebrews 11:14).

Walter Brueggemann

Pope Francis encouraged all of us, “to make a grateful remembrance of the recent past, embrace the future with hope and live in the present by being loving, true friends, in communion with others.” If not us, then who? If not now, when? The prophetic task of our time is to summon the community of faith to make knowing and risky decisions between options of life or death and to remember that indeed Christ is risen!