The Meaning of Hope
photo courtesy of Tracey Clark of Shutter Sisters
There’s a storm brewing around me, and everywhere I turn someone is having a crisis about the meaning of hope. The questions are sometimes spoken, but mostly silent, and they sound something like this:
If I don’t want to travel around the world to (maybe scary) places and ask people questions about hope, am I still a hopeful person?
Can you be hopeful and incredibly doubtful at the same time?
Is there some sort of expert definition of hope and do you have to be a survivor of various tragedies to claim it?
What if the hope you know best is the kind that shows up in tiny moments–like giving a child a bath or washing the dishes or making a bed–and what if you’re not so hopeful about other things–like if the person you love loves you back? or if your life can be dramatically different than it is right at this moment, even though you desperately wish it was?
Is being hopeful best left to a hope specialist? or do regular people who (theoretically) have nothing to complain about really have a shot at that thing at all?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I’m watching carefully as the questions unravel the askers and I’m hoping against all hope I have nothing to do with all the accompanying self-doubt, but I’m not so sure.
What I do know is that hope starts as a seed and if you are very, very lucky, you find a place to plant it, and someone else comes along and waters it and little by little together you can watch it grow. What it grows into no one can predict exactly unless you were also lucky enough to find the master gardener who gave it to you and ask her what it will turn out to be, but even if you can find that person and she decide to tell you, I’m not sure you could believe her or that your heart could even let you know the answer–the future of seeds being generally mysterious and uncertain, especially to the person who’s never held a seed before.
At least not a seed as simple and innocent as this.
It was just a flash, anyway, right? The way you felt when you saw the fire in her little girl eyes. The way your heart leapt when you first looked through the lens at running water, fresh turned earth. The way you knew everything had to change when you heard your name, when you read the fine print.
It hardly matters.
Or does it?
Hope asks that you notice tiny moments, each one, but not only this. Hope asks that you trust them, that you listen to them, that you take that sneaking suspicion that the Universe is indeed a safe place, a good place even and that you plant it deep into that dark corner of your heart.
It’s a ridiculous act, and no one need know. Until, of course, everyone has to know. That something’s growing here. And that whatever it is, it is no longer meant for darkness, that it is taking over actually. That it is expanding beyond the confines of your mind and twisting and turning its way out your ears and your eyes and even–God help us–your mouth where it says exactly what it was thinking, back when it was just a seed in a case in the dark in the part of your heart where you were most hurting.
And believe me, these words are a scandal. They are deceptively simple. So simple, you could miss the click before the explosion goes off, before you understand really, that everything must change if this thing is even half true.
“You have everything you need.”
“You are not alone.”
“No one belongs here more than you.”
By the time you speak them, you will forget about hope or the seed or the flash when you first wondered if it could be true. By then, you will have an actual living thing to tend to, a living thing that looks nothing like when it started–a little bit of nothing in your hands. With this living thing–this Hope made manifest–you will have a place to rest, a place to stand, a view from which to see the world, a blossom of goodness to inhale, a bit of fruit to nourish you, a site to behold from a far off land. From the shoots of this living thing, you will plant again and again and again until your life is a field of possibility, until your land is a garden of Hope where any lost traveler can come.
For something to eat.
Or a seed.
Or a story.
Or a place to be convinced,
the best is yet to come.
The Name Your Dream Assignment voting closes tomorrow at midnight. Please register your name and email address and vote.
April 2nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
you are a wise woman my sister-friend. how blessed we all are to have your light. your hope. and in turn OUR hope. thank you for this.
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
this is a beautiful rendering of hope, dear jen. thank you yet again for stirring the soil in my soul and encouraging me not to sit in sorrow or despair, but rather to cling to hope, to move in the direction of my dreams, and to hope, to know, and to live against all the odds that hint that my words do not matter, that my presence doesn’t matter, that my dreams do not matter. thank you, thank you, thank you. and may the votes pour in.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“I’m watching carefully as the questions unravel the askers and I’m hoping against all hope I have nothing to do with all the accompanying self-doubt, but I’m not so sure.”
I don’t think anything has changed - except the fact that they now realize they have been carrying around an unanswered question. Now they know to start looking for an answer.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I keep hoping that your five continents includes australia, because I would love you to come and visit.
Because this place is sometimes hope incarnate - how do you rebuild a town that burnt to the ground, or keep farming in a 20 year drought? people do.
And an ex-premier can stand up and talk about his depression, because he wants farming communities to get the help they need.
anyway. was just wondering, where on five continents your actually going.
i’ve loved your words and video about this project so far.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I’ve been pondering HOPE a great deal lately, too. Just this morning, I was looking at your Cool People Care poster and saw the encouragement to OFFER HOPE.
Then I recalled Barack Obama saying, “There is never anything false about hope.”
So, once again, I choose hope ~ regardless of all the other ‘voices’ that might try to get in the way.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:11 am
Hey Jen have you ever heard of Chuck Yeager? He was the first person to break the sound barrier. When he landed from the flight the media ran to him and asked what he had to say. His first comment was “just before you break through the sound barrier, the cockpit shakes the most.”
Just some food for thought. Keep doing what your doing, it’s all good:-)
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:17 am
I gave you and Stephanie a little link love over at my place today with my post titled, A Hopeful Heart. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you win this one for us all.
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 am
[…] blog, you know of her passion for planting and encouraging hope in the darkest places (yesterday’s post is a perfect […]
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
Eek–you’re no longer in second place! I just added one more vote to the pot. Fingers crossed on your behalf!
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
This might not come out right at all, as I don’t tend to convey my thoughs very well, but even though we have never met or even conversed in any other sort of way you truly inspire me and encourage me every day and very often move me to tears with your blog. Your writing, your pictures, your shared secrets, your joy, your hurt all of it is so wonderfully accepted and such a very good lesson on learning to accept myself. All of me. Thank you so much. This occurred to me the other night while I was thinking about your imagery of your heart cracking open and being mended back together, but it occurred to me maybe it was your heart growing and expanding and allowing all that love and goodness and hope and joy to move into your heart in larger quantities.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Beautiful, wise post. I love the image of the sprout growing out the ears, the mouth . . . When I dare speak hope, I sometimes get the “who are you? you’re kinda crazy” look, but I just smile in return. Or blush and look away . . . .
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“Peace did not come into my life. My life escaped, and peace was there.”
(Leonard Cohen)
I’ve been looking at hope lately as peace. Like the peace that resides in your heart when you know that as long as you hold onto hope, every bit of doubt and chaos in your life will work itself out. It may not be tomorrow or even next week, but when you hold onto hope, it will hold you up until it all works out.
That hope is what brings me peace.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:58 pm
“Can you be hopeful and incredibly doubtful at the same time?”
My friend, I don’t think you can be hopeful without being doubtful at the same time. It’s like faith; There’s no faith without doubt.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:46 am
a great post and I feel very shaky about hope at the moment
April 4th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Congratz Jen!!!!!! This is a great adventure you are about to take!How exciting for you guys!GO HOPE GO!
April 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I believe you, you know I do, but what happens when you’re tending that seed, that seedling, and people come along and tear it up? Do you just keep planting seeds? What about that moment when you’ve got no seed in the ground, between being uprooted and being planted again?
April 4th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Just last night I finally saw the movie, Milk — it was a great example of hope. xoxo, ~ M.
April 4th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
So beautiful. I love this. Yesterday for my niece’s surgery, we were all surrounded by hope. It is amazing, powerful stuff. Those seeds really do help to grow strength when it is most needed. So happy for you.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
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April 20th, 2009 at 11:02 am
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