Tag: Hope Rising

A message of Hope for the season

Ben Langford delivers a message of “Hope” to The Springs CofC audience.

I hope you keep reading this blog post. See what I did there?

Well, you will.

The church I attend, The Springs Church of Christ in Edmond, launched a series of sermons on the season of Advent this past Sunday. Our preacher, Ben Langford, presented it as a season of hope found in the birth of Christ.

Ben defined hope in the way that University of Oklahoma professor and author Chan Hellman, Ph.D., describes it in his book “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”

Dr. Hellman’s definition of hope is, “the belief that your future can be brighter and better than your past and that you actually have a role to play in making it better.”

I read Hope Rising a couple years ago and was caught off guard by the definition. I always thought hope was something far more nebulous and random.

Sort of like “I hope rain doesn’t wash out the baseball game tomorrow, or “Gee, I hope you get what you want for Christmas.”

See, I’ve always believed that hope was more of a wish than something you could actually turn into an action item.

But Hellman’s book explains how people can set a goal, find a path toward its completion and then take action to reach it.

That sounds a lot like a goal setting exercise I learned in college.

In Hope Rising, Hellman demonstrates how the science of hope actually helps people who have been afflicted by life’s circumstances find their way to a better life from things like childhood trauma.

It’s not random or nebulous, but it does require some action by the person who’s hoping for better. It took a while, but I finally saw Dr. Hellman’s point about the “science” of hope as I read the book.

So, anyway, back to Ben’s sermon (watch it here). He made the point that people find hope in Christ by seeing the path to God and taking action to achieve it.

It was the type of sermon that stayed with you beyond lunch at Earl’s BBQ afterward.

I hope this blog post made some sense for you.

See what I did there?

Phone tracking: ‘They are listening.’ Maybe

The Springs
A Sunday morning adult class at The Springs Church of Christ in Edmond

First off, let me say up front that I am NOT wearing an aluminum helmet as I write this. And our windows are not covered with foil to keep mind-controlling radio waves out.

But sometimes weird coincidences happen, especially with our cell phones.

Hope RisingI was sitting in a Sunday morning class on the topic of ‘hope’ at our church a few weeks ago, listening to a lesson presented by Chad Hellman, Ph.D., a University of Oklahoma professor and co-author of the excellent book “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”

Dr. Hellman discussed subjects like how childhood trauma impacts the future lives of children, and how pursuing “hope” as he defined it can help people — young and old — set goals and achieve them as they pursue a better life.

My wife, Paula, was seated next to me, and near the end of Dr. Hellman’s presentation she got a text alert from Apple news on her phone. It promoted an article on the order of “12 steps you can take for a happier life.”

Paula showed me the alert on her phone’s screen and whispered “they’re listening.”

We both smiled at the irony.

But it’s happened before. We’ve been in the car on trips having conversations on some topic when ads served up by Facebook on our phones eerily matched the subject.

Cue the Twilight Zone theme.

If you search “is my phone tracking my conversation” online, dozens of articles will pop up on the subject, including this one from the Washington Post that seeks to quell our fear.

Here’s the bottom line based on interviews with experts:

“It’s an old wives’ tale,” said Eric Seufert, who founded the marketing consultancy Heracles Media and runs a popular blog for app developers. “It’s this kind of mythical, horrific, but ultimately untrue, fear.’

‘The short answer is: No, your phone isn’t listening. But why is this rumor so hard to shake?’

Other articles take the possibility more seriously that conversations are being tracked by our phones, including this one from Fox News headlined: “You are not paranoid: your phone really is listening in.”

So, it’s a mixed bag of believers and skeptics. I only know from my own experience like the one during Dr. Hellman’s presentation on a Sunday morning.

Excuse me while I go look for some aluminum foil.