Hope trusts in the promises of God. Hope seeks the action of God that brings forth a new reality. Optimism stands in the current reality, wishing to make the best of each individual experience. But hope stands knee deep in the history of this reality by yearning for the action of God to bring forth a new reality in which everything in this reality is reconciled and redeemed.
The resurrection is the promise that death will not prevail, that nothingness does not have the last word. God promises to overcome it with life... We can trust that God will overcome death because Jesus is the resurrection, because on the third day Jesus rose again, as the first of many.
Grace is costly because it calls us through our person to the person of Jesus Christ. And when we follow the person of Jesus Christ, when we follow his call through our person, we're sent to act for the concrete person of our neighbor in the world.
The Anselmian call for "faith seeking understanding" may start and gather it's energy not in rational study of past theological points but in the pursuit to make sense of our concrete and lived experiences of Jesus who finds us in a hole, knocks us from our horse, or comes to our daughter in her sleep.
The Anselmian call for "faith seeking understanding" may start and gather its energy not in rational study of past theological points but in the pursuit to make sense of our concrete and lived experiences of Jesus who finds us in a hole, knocks us from our horse, or comes to our daughter in her sleep.