Episode 6

You can find out more about Dr Patrick Oliver BY CLICKING HERE.

00:00:00 - 00:36:50 Pt 1 Hope vs Expectation: What's the difference and why it matters.

00:36:50 - 01:16:04     Pt 2 What does it mean to hope? (See points Patrick expounds on below).

01:15:04 - 1:30:48 6     Pt 3 Tips on how to cultivate hope in our lives. (See points Patrick expounds on below).

Notes for Part 2:

1. Hope is keeping the heart open to the mystery of the unknown.

2. Hope allows the possibility of a future.

3. Hope is a stance. Expectation tends to be something we “have” or “carry”.

4. Hope is flexible, whereas expectation is inflexible.

5. Hope meets and holds reality, whereas expectation defines limits as to what reality should be.

6. Hope leads us into a lovely humility.

7. Hope allows others to grow, whereas expectation limits others.

8. Hope can live the tension of the “now” and the “not yet”.

9. Hope requires that we “stay awake" and be mindfully present.

10. Hope is not limited by previous experience, whereas expectation is.

11. Hope can dance with our dreams and our imagination.

12. Hope creates the space for beauty and potential to unfold.

13. Hope enables us to remain youthful, even in old age.

14. Hope can admit uncertainty – so it does not die when it goes unmet.

15. Hope employs willingness, whereas expectation and cynicism employ wilfulness.

16. Hope drinks from the immersion into the mega-story.

17. Hope means it’s never the final full stop.

Notes for Part 3:

1. Let Mystery surprise you.

2. Shift from asking the question “Who am I?” to “Whose am I?” and “To whom do I belong?”

3. Rather than saying “Yes but ..”, begin to say “Yes and …”

4. Recognise you’re both dust and divinity: a clashing of opposites.

5. Encourage a capacity within you for healthy self-critique.

6. Recognize how you’ve been brought through your Red Seas and your wildernesses.

Some thoughts to carry away:

"I don't know if I'm good. But that doesn't matter. Because I know God is."

"The meaning of life is that we need to learn to forgive life for what shouldn't have been."

"There comes a time when you need to stop trying to understand and learn to stand under."

"Faith is seeing all as within the Weave. Hope is the embrace of the Weave’s reality, and breathing from within it. Love is the response of goodness from within the Weave."

"Hope is the virtue of the pilgrim."

"The resurrection is irreversible”.

"Hope is leaving the porch light on." (Maya Angelou)