There's this idea in some stories. It's in The Giver, that there will be one member of their society whose job it is to hold memories. The Last Sin Eater dramatizes the idea of the scapegoat found in the Mosaic Covenant: the guilt of the people is placed on a victim - in the Bible it is a goat who bears their iniquities into exile as a method of atonement. In both cases the idea is that the people are relieved of something, and this needful thing is accomplished by a segment of the group.
I worry* sometimes that my friends will think that hoping is just my thing. (Hope is my thing; I'm rather passionate about it. Only, it isn't patented.) They might think that I can be the hopeful person, just like one of us is nerdy and one of us is silly and one of us is quiet. They can let me hope for them, but they're going to stay cynical. I might have a crazy hopeful perspective, and they'll tolerate me; they just aren't going to join me.
But it seems like God has led me not just to hope, but to share what I have learned, to teach and encourage other people to hope. I rejoice when others dare to hope.
I don't believe hope is optional. What we hope for varies, but hoping is part of faith and part of loving.
*This is only a worry. I don't have any evidence that my friends actually think this, thank God!
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