During his time in a Nazi prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge that he was neither a pessimist (expecting things to get worse) nor an optimist (expecting things to get better). He said that he was living by hope.

Hope! One of three foundational forces—faith, hope, and love—that St. Paul said "remains" when everything else goes belly-up.

I find Bonheoffer's allusion to hope as an alternative to optimism or pessimism to be insightful and inspirational. He has identified a biblical idea that I think sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.

Bonhoeffer provokes me to take a new look at how I am evaluating things during this economic crisis as a Christ-follower and as an organizational leader.

Bonheoffer was writing about hope in a moment when his life was on the line. My (our) problems pale in comparison with his. In these days of financial meltdown, most of us have, at best, lost financially. Bonhoeffer lost his life … life on earth, anyway. But to the ...