At Belmont University, our Christ-centered life together is shaped by the guiding principles of our SOUL Framework, which calls us to seek excellence with humility, offer gratitude with joy, unleash hospitality with love and live the dream together with hope. In a time where knowledge flows freely from countless technological platforms, we are in desperate need of wisdom—the virtue that undergirds the entirety of the SOUL Framework and also is our aim.  

With the start of another academic year, we have the chance to redirect our focus and begin with the end in mind. It is only by knowing our ultimate end—our telos—that we know how and where to begin. So we begin this year at the end of our SOUL Framework: Living the dream together with hope. 

 

 

Living the Dream Together 

When we talk about living the dream together, it is all too easy to descend into an overly simplistic understanding of “the dream” —an understanding that elevates power, success and comfort. But as a people shaped by the story of Jesus, we must ask the question: which dream are we being invited to live? 

The answer is both simple and expansive: God’s dream. Our individual dreams do matter, but they are not ends in themselves. Rather they fit together into a puzzle that belongs to Christ, in whom all our dreams are swept up into a big, colorful, too-good-to-be-true dream that God is making reality. 

Recognizing that the dream is God’s allows us to move beyond reactive patterns fueled by fear and ambition. We begin to walk not as agents of futile striving, but as agents of hope—leaning forward with trust, from our heels to our tiptoes, toward the future God is drawing us into. 

 

 

With Hope 

The best dreams come from a place of hope. It is hope that gives our dreams meaning and carries us through adversity. Hope is not to be confused with optimism—a belief that things will get better on their own, which lacks the deep roots that sustain us through trial. Without hope’s ever-flowing provision, optimism turns quickly to cynicism.   

Real, Christian hope acknowledges the reality of suffering. In Romans 5, Paul writes, “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us” (Romans 5:3-5). Hope refuses to bypass suffering but carries us through it. It threads the needle between despair and presumption and refocuses our vision on God’s dream for creation.

Belmont’s own history bears witness to the relationship between suffering, perseverance, character and hope.  

On a December morning in 1972, Belmont’s primary academic and administrative building, Blanton Hall, burned. The fire broke out in a basement classroom and quickly spread until the building was almost completely destroyed. In a time before documents were stored digitally, many of Belmont’s most important documents—research, registrar files, financial records, even singular copies of doctoral dissertations—were lost. To make matters worse, Belmont was already in a rocky financial position. After the fire, Betty Wiseman, then faculty member, said: “Months after that fire, we didn’t know if we would get a paycheck. And if we didn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. That’s how loyal the faculty and staff were to Belmont. Lots of us figured Belmont might just be over.”  

And it easily could have been, but in a miracle of hope, Belmont persisted. It even grew. It was in the direct aftermath of the fire that some of Belmont’s most beloved programs—business, nursing and music business—were born.  

On campus, near the original site of Blanton Hall, now stands the Pheonix statue, which reminds us of how God brings newness from ashes. This is the lens through which we are called to look at the world: to see suffering for what it is, and to allow it to refine us and produce hope in us. This is Christian Hope. 

 

Looking Ahead 

As we move into the year ahead of us, let’s do so together, with big dreams and with hope—not an empty hope that ignores tragedy or disappointment, but with an Easter hope that sees the world in its brokenness and still trusts that the best is yet to come. 

There is a prayer in the book of Ephesians that ends by saying, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21). This is what we’re dreaming, how we’re dreaming, and who we’re dreaming with. 

Join me in leaning forward with an eagerness fixed in the hope of the resurrection, rising from our heels to our tiptoes and living the dream together with hope.