The Day I May Have Reconciled with Hope

I've mentioned my fear of hope. Having an expectation, a dream, only to have it shatter in the middle of a joy filled moment. Because I've had that happen. A lot.

But I think I'm giving up my anger against hope (and tirades that hope does disappoint, damn it, Paul!). And I had to redefine it in my own words. I think the issue is I've always added a particular weight to hope, like I just mentioned, an expectation. Hope is the wish that something may happen. A simple wish. The expectation of this wish happening, that is faith.

What if Hope is more or less a wish with the understanding that it may or may not come to be. With the knowledge that our desire may be fulfilled, but at the same time, it holds the reality of futility.

I'm only swimming in these ideas as I write, but if this is Hope, knowing it may succeed and may fail, but still desiring whatever it is, then Hope must come with courage. It takes courage to say, "Yes, I know this may fail. But I choose to hope otherwise".

It is the cynic who has no hope. I can say such because I've worn this title and worn it well. And it is I who have raged against Paul in his letter to the Romans, declaring that hope does disappoint. But I don't think the act of hope disappoints. Hope is not blind. It sees the odds, tastes the reality, hears the cynics, reads the news, and knows full well the politics involved, ... yet hopes otherwise.

And when we have faced off with reality, given other outcomes a good look in the eye, and taken heart to hope in something, then, and perhaps only then, can we not be disappointed.

An Evening Run

Running down the country road was more than my lungs could take; every breath tickled my nose raw. The breeze danced innocently in and out of my bangs, and the cradled sun settled for the evening.

And yet…my brain continued to busy itself, arranging questions and answers, problems and solutions, into its puzzled construct.

Wildflowers and wheat addled the roadside, as though the black tar invaded its muse.

And still, the puzzle should come together, at some moment. Thus, this noise thieved from me Gratitude, Joy, and Peace.

Perhaps the flowers and wildness reached out to me. Groping to quiet the questions. For nature knows not, wants not, the deafening noise of trivial passivity.