Hope locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act...Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable.
...If we can stay in touch with ourselves, if
we can find the connection to our deeper
selves, we can find this deeper level of
hope that truly should be called
imagination...in the depths of each person
there is a greater self and a core
imagination that is truly the source of
one's life.
~ Michael Meade in LIVING MYTH podcast, Episode 167, "The Second Level of Hope"
Is it possible to see the future as dark and darkening further; to reject false hope and
desperate pseudo-optimism without collapsing into despair?...if you don't feel despair, in
times like these, you are not fully alive. But there has to be something beyond despair,
too; or rather, something that accompanies it, like a companion on the road....I am
going to pick up [my scythe] and go and find some grass to mow. I am going to cut
great swaths of it...I am going to walk ahead, following the ground... I am going to
breathe the still-clean air and listen to the still-singing birds and reflect on the fact that
the earth is older and harder than the machine that is eating it—that it is indeed more
resilient than fragile—and that change comes quickly when it comes, and that
knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Either we have hope within or we don't; it is a
dimension of the soul not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the
world or estimate of the situation. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the
heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored
somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope is what sits by a window and waits for one more
dawn, despite the fact that there is not one ounce of
proof in tonight's black, black sky that it can possibly
come.
~ Joan Chittister in SCARRED BY STRUGGLE, TRANSFORMED BY HOPE
Active hope is a practice...It is something we do rather than have. Since active hope
doesn't require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless.
The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or
express.
Hide not from Love, O friends,
sink not into the sea of despair,
the mire of hatred.
Awaken, O my heart, that I drown not
in fear!
Too long have I sailed where'ere
the winds have blown!
Drop anchor!
...Open my eyes to the moments of resurrection that surround me every day. There is always something rising, opening to new life, budding and blossoming, forgiving and transforming. Teach me to live awake that I may recognize the renaissance being celebrated in my midst at every moment. Make me a disciple of joy. Amen.
