A Meditation on Hope

This post may seem elliptical, even for me, but I hope it’ll make sense at the end. (You have been warned.)

Sometimes, I wonder about the feeling of hope. We need that, in our lives; we need to feel that whatever we’re doing will eventually succeed, or at least that whatever we’re doing will lead to ultimate success in whatever it is we’re trying to do.

And without hope, how could we get there? Especially as many things we try to do, such as write a book (or lengthy piece of music), require the devotion of many hours of hard and taxing work?

In the midst of such labors, maybe you’re like me and wonder if the feeling of hope makes any sense.

Is hope logical, in other words?

I don’t know if is. But I do know we couldn’t live without it.

Hoping for better tomorrows is one of the reasons the Founding Fathers of the United States drafted the Articles of Confederation, then the Constitution of the U.S. They thought long and hard about what they wanted — and didn’t want — in such documents, and realized that whatever they did (or didn’t) do, it wouldn’t be enough. Yet they had hope, and they persevered, and they eventually came up with those important, bedrock documents.

And in the Bible, many people lived in hope that God would show them the way, even if they didn’t necessarily always understand what that way was. (Many, many people did not recognize Jesus when he showed up, for example.)

Hope was the one thing in Pandora’s Box, too…the one, unstoppable thing that might make all the difference in the world.

When we’re at our lowest ebb, it’s hope that allows us to try again another day.

And it’s when all hope is gone that we slowly, surely, lose our place in this world, and wonder why we’re even here. And what good we’re even doing. And why we should bother to keep doing it.

But is hope ever truly gone? Isn’t there always something to hope for? Some reason to get up in the morning, and face the day, and smile?

I don’t have the answers to that question.

What I do have is the hope that I will find the answers to that question someday. (I know, I know; there’s that word again, in all its slipperiness.)

And sometimes, that has to be enough.

What do you think about the meaning of hope? Or about how elliptical my thought processes can sometimes be? Let me know in the comments!