1. Mystical hope is not tied to a good outcome, to the future. It lives a life of its own, seemingly without reference to external circumstances and conditions.

2. It has something to do with presence — not a future good outcome, but the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something intimately at hand.

3. It bears fruit within us at the psychological level in the sensations of strength, joy, and satisfaction: an "unbearable lightness of being." But mysteriously, rather than deriving these gifts from outward expectations being met, it seems to produce them from within.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope