H for Hope -- the hardest blog to write so far!

H for HOPE

Here we go—the definition of hope is: n. a feeling that what is wanted is likely to happen; desire accompanied by expectation.   v. to want very much.  This is the definition according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary.  And now, we are going to throw in another definition from the Bible, Proverbs 13:12:  “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”  Hmmmm.  Provocative, isn’t it?

We often say, “ Oh, I hope … happens!”  Or, “ I just hope everything turns out all right!”  And, “ We can only hope and pray!”  Ever made those comments?  Heard others speak them?  Of course you have unless you have totally isolated yourself from the world, in which case you would not be reading this right now!  And then there is a phrase that one of my English professors railed against repeatedly—“HOPEFULLY…”  He maintained hopefully was not even a legitimate word!  He hated it with a passion, stating it was a generalized say-nothing word, right up there with the word nice, which also says nothing. (Funny what you remember, huh?)  As a result, I try to avoid the words hopefully and nice when I write.  I truly do see the vacuum they leave people with and they are pretty empty words for the most part.  They can cover a lot of territory with very little commitment on the part of the one throwing the words out there.  But the word HOPE, by itself, speaks volumes.

I have mentioned before that I volunteer and feed the homeless.  You would think it would become routine, much as other things you repeatedly do.  But it never becomes routine.  Each time my friends and I leave, having distributed food for both the homeless and their fur babies, I am in awe of the hope they hold onto that they will be out of this situation and with any luck, sooner rather than later.  I look at their make-shift shelters, everything they own in a trash bag or backpack, their worn out shoes, no socks, gaunt faces, and I wonder—what do you have to hope for?  I am in awe that they will make comments such as, “God is good to me!  Others are a lot worse off.  See? I have socks and you brought me a lunch!”  And they will smile a genuine smile of thankfulness.  They survive because they never lose hope!  They also encourage others, reminding them that hope is not gone or lost because they are still alive and surviving.

HOPE.  Desire accompanied by expectation.  Fulfilled hope a tree of life.  We experience severe heat and drought, like last summer, and hope for rain and cooler temperatures.  We pass a car accident and see the ambulance there and hope everyone will be all right.  We see people acting cruelly toward another, bullying them, and at the least hope they can be stopped and receive just consequences for their actions, if we cannot actively stop it.  We Hope for peace—around the world, in our country, in our communities, homes, in ourselves.  We try to make it happen, usually starting with ourselves, and try to extend it as far as we can to the outside world.

But our question, something that burns in us, deep down, is what happens if hope dies?  What if people quit hoping for the things we want to make right?  The things we want to leave our children, grandchildren that will better their lives?  What if that hope slowly ebbs from us?  We lose it?  Give up?  What then?

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…”   No more writing.  Why write if you lose hope that you will make a difference, touch someone, inspire someone?  No more music written or created.  Why bother when no one will sing your words, hum your innovative creation of notes strung together and be moved by it?  No more outrage against injustice.  Hey, what happens happens, right?  What can one do when there is no hope to change the wrong?  When one cares and no one else does?  When families divide and care not what happens to their members?  When animals are killed thoughtlessly?  Cruelty goes on towards human life, animal life, our earth?  Sick hearts without hope will do nothing and simply wait to die because what is there if there is no hope?

My truth is that there is an innate sense of survival in each of us.  We are born with it.  And as babes, we either hope and thus try to survive, or we are overcome and die.  Hope is in our species as humans, the animal species, and the earth keeps trying and trying to repair and renew itself in spite of what we do to her.  Hope is all around us.  But if we give up, deny that urging in our souls to desire with expectation, our hearts will sicken and die.  I can’t imagine a more horrible death than one where the dying heart has no hope left and slips out into the emptiness it is already a part of.

In the movie, “The Never-Ending Story,” the greatest battle came about with the nothing.  It was a huge black nothingness that swallowed hope, dreams, everything into its blackness and all was naught.  As an adult, watching the movie, my heart pounded, I felt desperate for the boy hero to win over the nothing!  And I had nightmares about being swallowed up into the NOTHING—being left in a black vacuum—totally empty.

I fight for HOPE.  As long as I am fighting, I have hope because I am expecting an outcome and result.  We HAVE TO HOPE !  If we do not—we will become a part of the nothing.  That is my truth and I HOPE  I am right!