On good days, I suppose I imagine that hope can lead to the opening of new ways, the lighting of dark corners, and the answers to life's difficult questions.
On not-so-good days I am pretty sure that I imagine hope is sorta like daydreaming: a pleasant diversion, but not at all productive.
If preachers like me, or motivational speakers, or inspirational writers are going to talk about "hope" then we also need to talk about "hopelessness." We need to acknowledge the darkness of the human condition, including our own condition, into which hope may still bring some small shaft of light. Not all the time, but sometimes. Not always a bright light, but most often bright enough to show us our surroundings.
On a more positive note, hope always shifts the focus forward. And forward is a much better way to go than backward. And standing still.
And, hope is always a choice...from among many other choices...that we can make. Try this list on for size and see what more you could add to it:
-We can choose hope...over fear.
-We can choose hope...over anger.
-We can choose hope...over discouragement.
-We can choose hope...over desperation.
-We can choose hope...over violence.
-And, we can choose hope...over hopelessness.
The painting above is titled "Hope." It was painted by George Frederic Watts in 1886. (You can Google the name of the painting and read much more about it than I will offer here.)
It shows a woman with bandaged eyes and broken dreams. She is sitting on top of a not-very-inviting-looking world. Unable to see ahead, she is holding in her hands a harp with all but one of its strings broken.
That one unbroken string is hope...and she plucks it repeatedly, sending out into the darkness a melody that moves the clouds and gives birth to a star in the otherwise lightless sky.
That's the first rendition of Watts' painting I just described. In the second rendition that I have pictured above, Watts removed the star because he felt the original painting was too happy, hopeful, and cheery. So, in this painting the hopeful melody played by the non-seeing woman has yet to strike just the right note to birth the star.
I wonder what can and cannot be created or accomplished by hope.
And so, I turn to, and offer up for us all, some words from the book, "The Impossible Will Take a Little While."
It reads as follows:
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope...
...not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower;
...not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
...not the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which can creak on shrill and angry hinges;
...not the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything is gonna be all right."
But a different, somewhat lonely place...
...the place of truth-telling;
...the place of resistance and defiance;
...the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be - as it will be;
...the place from which you glimpse not only the struggle, but joy in the struggle.
And there we stand.
I wonder...
