Hope: A User's Manual (MaryAnn McKibben Dana) - A Review

HOPE: A User’s Manual. By MaryAnn McKibben Dana. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022. X + 179 pages.

We could all use a bit of hope in our lives. In recent years, life has become increasingly complicated and stressful. We’ve seen it in our politics, cultural life, and even our religious life. It’s come to the point that many folks, including Christians, worry about the future. Things were already heading in that direction before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and it only made things worse. People got sick and died. People lost their jobs and businesses closed. Students from the youngest through graduate school struggled with their studies. Everyone seemed to endure loneliness and disconnection from one another. Then as we tried to navigate the pandemic, our politics became even more polarized and people in the West, including the United States have begun to worry that democracy might not endure. Then inflation made daily economic life more challenging. So, it’s understandable that hope has been in short supply. So, we might welcome a user’s manual that can help us build some hope into our lives.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana has written just that manual that can be of help even to those of us who might be skeptical about such offers of help. Many a false prophet has offered false hopes, so you might wonder if this book is any different from the many self-help manuals that fail to produce what is promised. We might start with the fact that the author is not a purveyor of self-help platitudes. She is by background, besides being a writer, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA. PCUSA pastors generally are serious thinkers, so that should settle our nerves a bit. Besides being a pastor she’s a ministry coach, and clergy need hope as well.

When Dana speaks of hope in Hope: A User’s Manual, she’s not offering a word of optimism. She doesn't downplay the realities of our time. After all, this book was written in the midst of the pandemic. I’m sure she heard from clergy and laity alike about these realities. Instead of optimism, she offers this book to "religious folk who" like her, "are weary of pat answers and scripty-font platitudes about hope" (p. 3). In other words, this isn't a book that offers easily reshared memes offering "be happy" sentiments that fit nicely on Facebook or other Social Media devices.

She has organized the book around six themes. Each theme/section is divided into several brief chapters (usually 3-4 pages in length). Thus, this book could easily serve as a daily devotional for those needing a dose of hope. In these six sections Dana explores these ideas/concepts: "What Hope Is Not;" "What Hope Is;" "Hope Lives in the Body;" "Hope Travels in Story;" "The Practice of Hope;" and "Hope Beyond Hope." Each section breaks down into six to nine brief chapters, each of which explores an element of that theme. The message we encounter in these chapters is often personal, as Dana reveals elements of her own life and that of her family. That includes revealing that her young daughter struggled with depression during the pandemic, something many families have dealt with along with their children and youth and young adults. So much so that it’s difficult to get into any form of therapy.

It’s appropriate that she begins the book with a section titled "What Hope Is Not." Sometimes stating the negative is more helpful than offering a positive definition. In this opening section, Dana makes it clear that hope is not prediction or optimism. It’s not the opposite of despair or even solace. Regarding what hope is, she tells us that hope is what we do. The reason why it’s what we do is that "hope is wrapped up in what we make real. Hope isn't what we think. Hope isn't what we feel. . . . hope is what we do in the face of suffering, pain, and injustice" (p. 39). Ultimately, the message of the book is that we experience hope when we take the long view and persevere through thick and thin. To do this, we are called upon to recognize that hope must be embodied, while involving storytelling and requiring practice. So, as we move to the book’s final section, which is titled “Hope Beyond Hope,” we are again reminded that hope is really an act of protest and resistance and therefore it requires perseverance.

This is a book for those who desire a word of hope but don’t expect easy answers. It offers a word of encouragement that acknowledges that we face deep challenges and that a be-happy attitude is not enough to sustain us. She recognizes that many of us, even folks in the church, experience things like depression. Life is complicated. So, in her closing chapter, she points to the story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. The message she discerns for us in that story is that hope is about enduring and persevering through the storm. Yes, hope is found in riding out the storm.

May Mary McKibben Dana’s Hope: A User’s Manual, fulfill its promise that the reader might experience hope while navigating this very complicated world we live in.