[This was going to be a comment elsewhere, but seems to deserve better.]

The reason 'God' is a four letter word... is that what it represents to us actually is spelled with four letters: h, o, p, e.

People have put their faith in so many false hopes. And gotten burned.

It isn't that everything we've leaned on has dumped us-- because many things we've hoped for have actually come true, actually turned out well (& certainly so for me!) But the big things-- peace, justice, the healing of all those truly wounded people we know-- to see life itself turn out to be more than a too-easily rectified mistake... It's scary to hope for such things, without a pretty solid basis.

And all the easy remedies for that sort of yearning, they really do turn out inadequate. So far as they work, it's because God, in actuality, is truly at work in them, manifesting through them. (So far as we are alive at all, it is the same!) When we put our faith in these tools, as if they could be effective in their own right, that's when they turn out flawed and insufficient, to have toxic side effects.

And yes, the word 'God' has gotten overloaded with some highly complex baggage, made to stand for everything from apple pie to chastity belts! It is truly worth some serious examination!

But why is it that people "don't have time for all that"? Why would they rather talk about 'more pleasant subjects'?

To really feel The Big Hope... I can talk about that; I can know about that; and it's still very hard to feel it!