ISBC 13 - Hope is Either On or Off
Chapter 13 of Hope: A User's Manual
My hope may not be excellent, but it’s imperfectly, sloppily consistent.
In this way, hope can be the small candle flame that illumines a dark room. Often there isn’t much difference between one candle and ten—it’s the first one that makes the biggest impact. Perhaps Rabbi Adam Kligfeld has this in mind when he reflects on the meaning of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday commemorating an ancient miracle that kept the lamp oil flowing for eight days. Kligfeld suggests that the real miracle isn’t that the lamps never ran dry; the real miracle is that someone had enough hope to light them at all.1
Hope can feel like trying to keep balance on a tightrope. At times I feel like hope can go over in the way of blowing sunshine or the song at the end of Monty Python’s Life of Brian - singing “always look on the bright side of life” as Brian is being crucified along with several others. Or it can go to the other side of the balance where one doesn’t speak of it at all or simply doesn’t even think it can exist. It is a delicate balancing act but I hope that, if someone were to average out the ways that I not only seek to practice hope in my life but also offer it beyond myself that they’d find that I’m largely in balance. Yes, if you zoom in, one would likely see peaks and valleys but the more one zooms out the smoother the line becomes and the more it all moves to a single line pointing towards hope.
How do you feel your balance is with hope?
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 65). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
How about a bonus part two?
When I got the notification that this was posted, I was walking by a house that had a slack line balance rope running between two trees in their front yard.
It reminded me of the one that we have and how there was both the line that you walked on and also the balance one on top. The line above wasn’t necessarily to be gripped tightly, but held loosely as you walked between the trees.
It got me thinking back to the previous post about the 12 steps. Part of the recovery process is having a person that you can call at any point if you need help. That person is there for when you feel like you’re about to lose your balance.
There are several things that I can point to in my own life that are that balance line for me. My wife, my faith, nature and beauty.cc what helps you finding balance?
Love that photo!