I once founded a group called the Cynical Optimists Society. It was for people (like me) who wanted to approach life with hope and joy, and who believed it was possible to do so, but who couldn’t quite get over the hump of our own skepticism and misanthropy. “The Hopeful Curmudgeon” means pretty much the same thing. My observations of our culture and the state of the world don’t give me a great deal of confidence in humanity. I can’t help but notice all the things that are wrong in the world, and I can become churlish as a result. But I do have confidence that there is a better world coming, and that someday all the wrongs will be made right. Jesus called it the kingdom of God, and his confidence in its inevitability is what gives me hope.

In these posts, I propose to shine a light on the things that bug me about the world—the injustices, the tragedies, the petty annoyances—in a way that I hope will be amusing but also enlightening and inspiring. Welcome to my blog, Gentle Reader. I am ... the Hopeful Curmudgeon.