Hope is like a leopard. Even when it is there, you often have to make a concerted effort to find it. That has been my experience, anyway. Hope is an elusive creature, shy and unobtrusive. But she is exquisitely beautiful. And once you see her, once her image is imprinted on your mind, she is quite impossible to forget.
I have searched for her all my life. There have been many times when I thought I had finally found her, only to realise that what I was certain was her form was simply a trick of the light. There have been many times I have glimpsed her as she slipped into the shadows and became lost in the gloom. As I have journeyed through life I have scoured the path for her prints, frequently paused to peer through the undergrowth for traces of her presence. Time after time after time I have been disappointed.
And then, quite unexpectedly, she stepped into the road. She is breath-taking, mesmerising. Unmistakeable. She took me in with wild, golden eyes, then turned and padded silently down the road ahead of me. And I found my heart transformed, lighter, more free.
One of the struggles of fatherhood for me has been having to watch you desperately searching for her too. Because I know what it feels like to strain uncertainly against the blackness. But this is not something I can do for you. You need to look for her and find her for yourself. What I can do is offer some guidance regarding likely locations.
I think you are most likely to find her if you walk a kenotic path. Kenosis is a Greek word that essentially means self-emptying. It is the Jesus path of self-giving love. It is easy to walk this path for people you like and care for. Most people avoid this path when it comes to people they don’t like. But this is the path where Hope resides. The alternative paths lead to rivalry and scapegoating and accusation. Not the sorts of places where Hope thrives. But as you practise what it means to be-with in a posture of kenosis, you will learn to de-escalate tensions, transform rivalries into mutual respect and blame into acceptance. You will begin to see the best of what humanity (including you) can be. As Jesus taught, the road you choose matters. There is a narrow path – the pilgrimage of kenosis – and a wide one – the path where all our exclusionary metanarratives converge: religion, economics, politics, culture. Look for Hope on the narrow way.
I found it helpful to look for Hope through a quantum lens. This world is just one of an infinite number of parallel ones, where all the probabilities of who we could be, how we could shape our collective experience, exist side by side. This version of you is just one of many. The scars you wear now, the fears and hurts and longings you carry, are just one part of a much richer tapestry of you. When you weave all the threads together, in the fullness of space-time, you will come to recognise that for every betrayal there is forgiveness, for every hurt there is healing, every fall is simultaneously redeemed. Look to the resurrected Jesus, whom his disciples both recognised and failed to recognise, who was both physical (he ate fish, had scars in his hands) but also transcended physics to appear to his friends as they cowered in the upper room. He is the first fruits of what we all truly are. A tapestry of infinite selves. Maybe life’s suffering is the only way to cultivate what is truly noble: there is no understanding of empathy without first knowing hurt, no love without loss, no joy or peace or patience without some encounter with their opposites. But in a quantum world we are not collapsed into those things. We are all we could be. Look through a quantum lens, beyond space-time, past the limits of here and now, and I think you might see Hope flick her tail, stretch across the vastness of eternity and show you a glimpse of her beauty.
I have a suspicion that the years ahead may be turbulent ones. Partially because you are about to enter your teenage years, with its hormones and heartbreak, and partially because I think the world is on a precipice. That is why it is my prayer, my birthday wish, that you see Hope. That you never cease seeking her out. That you keep on walking the path of love, knowing that you are not walking it alone and that I love you more than I can ever say.
Remember that the search itself is part of her gift. I once thought finding Hope was the destination, the end of the journey. But I have come to believe she is also the quality of the search. It is the very act of looking for her, with eyes softened by kenosis and a heart open to quantum possibility, that transforms the seeker. You will find her where the search and the finding begin to fold into one another. So do not despair, dearest one, when the forest seems empty and Hope feels like a dream. In your sincere, aching, beautiful search for her, you are already walking with her. She is in the footprint you leave, and in the light in your eyes as you scan the dark horizon.
So happy bIrthday, my delight. I hope it is full of joy and hope.
Vapors In The Wind 
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