Here in the US, there’s a lot of heavy confusing talk swirling about what the right thing to do is right now. Open. Stay closed. Stay home for those who are at risk. Open up for those whose economic lifelines have been shattered. So many different opinions.
That’s why today’s blog is about hope.
Hope can seem like a weak word or a powerful word, depending on where you’re at. Just like open or stay at home can seem right or wrong, depending on where you’re at.
Hope is what we make of it.
It even has two definitions. The more current one is this: A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
Whereas the archaic definition is this: A feeling of trust.
That’s the one I’m leaning into today. Trusting that at our core, we are all able to listen to a Higher Discourse. And to lean into LOVE!
And so, as I often do, I turn to Mary Oliver.
She wrote that in a time of great distress and grief, her friend Daniel said:
It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry itwhen you cannot, and would not,
put it down.
She took those words of wisdom, and this is what she did:
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybealso troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
Yesterday was Earth Day, and I vowed to keep loving the world every single day as my core heart-centered practice.. Why? Because in the world I always find the hope I need. When I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of the world that are kind.
Those things that we disturb or trample or destroy — and yet still they bloom for our enjoyment. In those things I find the hope that I need. That beauty and goodness and joy does not need our human decision making to still exist. That Love did so clothe the lilies and that the birds are clothed in the finest of raiments.
And so I hope — have a feeling of deep trust — that if we can all be willing to release all our little opinions — we will hear the same answers as the birds and the flowers and the trees seem to hear. And then remember that Love is the only true Source and ReSource.
That we will all lean in with hope and faith, with understanding and belief. And do what is right and best and true. FOR OUR WORLD! Together.
#LoveViral
If you’d like to listen to today’s heart-centered practice of hope, here you go: