Welcome – Hope Sings So Beautiful

Welcome to HopeSingsSoBeautiful.org, which builds from the conversation about race initiated in the book Hope Sings, So Beautiful: Graced Encounters Across the Color Line (Liturgical Press, 2013), by Christopher Pramuk. As the author of Hope Sings, I’m grateful you’re here. Whether or not you’ve read the book, I hope you’ll find something here to inspire, provoke, deepen, or challenge your thought and imagination. The main interactive areas of the site are as follows:

Reading Guide: questions for group discussion, classroom reflection, or personal meditation on material in the book, organized by chapter

Music and Art: links to works of art, music, literature, and film discussed in each chapter as well as other pastoral, artistic, and scholarly resources

Raids Across the Color Line: our blog, with a diverse and talented group of writers, all deeply invested in the conversation about race. The title image of”Raids” is borrowed from a favorite book by Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable, perhaps his most prescient, poetically haunting, and beautifully “sideways” attack on structural sin and violence, inclusive of racism. I pray that something of Merton’s contemplative, prophetic spirit will accompany us in this blog.

About the Book: here you’ll find a description of the book, editorial reviews, and a link to purchase. If you’ve read the book and wish to share your thoughts about it, you are most welcome and encouraged to do so in the comments section here. Please, tell us what you think.

Hope Sings builds its mosaic of images and sketches partly from the intuition that racism, among many other things, is the symptom of a profound poverty of imagination, inclusive of our theological imagination, our most elemental images of God. Moreover, a disease of the imagination calls not only for moral or ethical responses but also responses that nourish, enlarge, and free the imagination. Thus the artistic spirit I aim to nourish and give free play throughout the book.

For more about “raids” and “the art spirit” please see my inaugural blog post. For now, on behalf of Liturgical Press and my fellow contributors, a heartfelt welcome!

Chris Pramuk, Cincinnati, May 2013

Rules of Engagement: Reader Comments & Site Images.

Because conversations about race, ethnicity, identity, and culture can be intense and personal, even (if not especially) among friends, please keep these “rules of engagement” in mind when posting comments to any area of this website.

A hermeneutic of generosity. We hope the conversations generated here reflect a hermeneutic of generosity, a genuine spirit of catholicity. We are committed to providing a safe space for discussions that are open, challenging and respectful, in a spirit of listening and mutual transformation. Comments that run counter to this spirit may be removed at the editor’s discretion.

Be polite. We’ll often explore uncomfortable subjects. Our contributors will seek to do so with sensitivity, authenticity, and good humor, and we’ll hold our commenters to the same standard. Please engage in good faith without personally attacking contributors or fellow commenters. None of us enters the conversation about race as a perfectly realized, fully enlightened human being. We are all, each of us, stumbling pilgrims on the journey. To presume “good faith” is to assume best of intentions and a desire for growth on all sides, wherever possible. It follows that ad hominem arguments or comments are never justified. Where you feel moved to critique or amplify or correct, please do so with charity.

Stick to the topic at hand. If a post covers a subject that doesn’t hold your interest, please move on, rather than expressing your boredom or changing the subject.

Image copyright. It should be assumed that all images on this website are copyright protected, and are used here for educational purposes only.

(My thanks to the blog “Women in Theology” and NPR’s “Code Switch” for help with these guidelines.)

Joanna Harmon says:

May 17, 2013 at 12:09 am

I look forward to receiving this blog. It looks especially positive in the face of our world today which, in too many ways, is very negative. I have not yet read the book but I will be ordering it.

Kathy Coffey says:

May 23, 2013 at 2:49 pm

How wonderful to find this website in the desert of blogs which are self-centered, self-promoting, poorly written and trivial. Chris Pramuk, with his usual self-deprecating humor, offers the opportunity for respectful, intelligent dialogue about a tough issue which concerns us all. Furthermore, he enhances the discussion with the beauty of art. Chris is a theologian with integrity, who “walks the walk” with his own splendid family. Welcome, Hope Sings! May you grace our lives with a unique music.

Luis Gutierrez says:

March 18, 2015 at 4:50 pm

What about building relationships across the gender line? What about the patriarchal priesthood as an obstacle?

Based on the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body,” my understanding is that the ordination of women to the priesthood would be in perfect continuity with apostolic tradition:

Ordination of Women in the Sacramental Churches
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv11n03supp6.html#section9

This is not about what women (or men) want. This is about discerning what Christ wants for the Church in the 21st century, for the glory of God and the good of souls. Would Jesus, in today’s globalized world, choose 12 males to represent the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel?

Critical feedback would be appreciated.

Prayers,
Luis

Christopher Pramuk says:

March 22, 2015 at 2:56 pm

Luis, thank you for your post. You raise, of course, one of the most critical questions facing the church of our time. In Chapters 7 and 8 of Hope Sings, I approach the question of gender and sex difference not through the lens of ordination as such but through the deep question of God – the images of God by which we live and structure our lives in church and society. Here again, as with race, it seems to me we suffer from a longstanding poverty/captivity of theological imagination.

If you scan through this blog you’ll find that, from the outset, we have gone beyond race to explore the need to “build relationships across the gender line.” See my recent post, for example, of March 8, 2015, on “The Images We Live By.”

http://www.hopesingssobeautiful.org/index.php/2015/03/09/the-images-we-live-by/

For a taste of my attempts to navigate these contentious questions theologically, through the lens of the Catholic sacramental imagination, you may be interested in this piece in New Theology Review.

http://newtheologyreview.com/index.php/ntr/article/view/51/1226

Thanks again, Luis, for your interest in the blog.

Sacred Walker says:

March 25, 2016 at 6:04 pm

Speechless. Inspired.

Randy Lumpp says:

August 29, 2018 at 5:41 pm

Hope sings. And so does lament.
There will be much lamentation before the present darkness is dispelled.
We can hope to be blessed by the spirit of more words such as yours in the meantime.

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