I wasn’t actually thinking. I was meditating on the word ‘hope.’ I’ve never done that before. Meditated on a word. But I realized I was feeling hopeful and the feeling felt foreign. And so I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And then I was meditating and so I meditated on the word.

Hope.

I was thinking about hope. Because I realized that I was feeling it – not the first time, but the first time in a long time.

I thought I had been feeling hope before, but I hadn’t been.

 

Hope is different than ‘keep your chin up.’ Because that’s really acting ‘as if and maybe it will come.’
If hope were a color it would be white.
‘Keep your chin up’ is brown.
‘Keep your chin up’ is not bad. It’s just not hope.

Hope is fresh.

I did a new thing.
I met a new person.
In a new place.
In a new way.
Under new circumstances.
I created the situation.

I didn’t really realize until after but I had not made the usual decision about what it would be like, what would happen, what it would mean – the preconceived notion.
I think because I’d never done it before.

And so I was exposed to a new way of thinking.
I did nothing but listen and open myself.
And in came hope.

Hope brings confidence.
Hope brings clarity.
Hope brings simplicity.
Hope is simple.

Hope straightens the spine, rolls back the shoulders, raises the heart to heaven; lifts the ribs off the lungs and makes it easier to breathe.

There is the famous or infamous Psalm – or Proverb, is it? – ‘faith, hope, love. These three abide, but the greatest of these….’
Certainly love can bring hope. Faith is hope-specific, isn’t it? But hope…
Hope is clean.
Hope opens the door for love.
For generosity.
For patience.

Hope is a new thing, isn’t it? It comes from a new thing, a new place.
It often comes from doing something new, reading something new, seeing something new.
Hope is actually the act itself – of seeing with new eyes.

It’s in something we never heard before.
It’s in something we’ve never done before.
It’s in something we’ve never thought before.
It’s in not deciding, not controlling what something is.

And then it dawns, like a pure note of music, a chime, a bell…

‘this could be.
It really could.
It could.’

I think ‘hope’ might be accidental.

Hope reminds us that life – the point – is right now.
What’s important is right now.… and then, right now… and, then, right now.
What really ‘is’
is right now.
All that there is
is right now.

And ‘right now’ could feel like this.

Like ‘hope.’

Hope feels good.
Hope makes me want to always feel hopeful.

I will look for that fresh clean thing everywhere.
I will do and read and go and meet and consider things I have never before.
I will hope for hope.

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