A REASON TO HOPE

Writing a monthly column for nearly a decade is not easy.

I mean, sure, I probably make it look easy with my effortless charm and disarming persona, but the truth is that deciding what to write (and maybe just as importantly, how to write about it) requires a great deal of consideration month after month. And it doesn’t help that the bMo readership is well above average. You're smart, good-looking, and discerning, but I don’t need to tell you that… unless you want me to.

On top of that, you and I live in the same world, watch the same news, and face many of the same challenges. When I approach my keyboard, I come ready to rant, or cry, or bang my head, just like most of you. But then I have to ask myself, would that help? Would it move the needle forward at all? Maybe sometimes… but most months it would just be scratching at the poison ivy and spreading the itch.

So, as your trusty correspondent to Humanity, I look for hope wherever I can find it. And then I do my best to promote it here in any way I can (sometimes subversively, with humor and witty banter). Some days hope is easier to find than others. On the hard days, I go back to the last place I saw her. I go there thinking maybe hope dropped something and will come back looking for it, and I’ll catch her like a muse and ask - What should I tell people who are looking for you?

My father-in-law, Jason Elmore, likes to say that at its core, hope is the belief that things could get better. Whether it’s the belief that things could get better, or a want, or a desperate demand in the form of a prayer screamed into a pillow, or a murmur repeated until it turns into a mantra, the human soul appears to have hope sown into its DNA. Hope is literally part of who we are.  Maybe that’s the jubilation we reach when hope is fulfilled. See, I told you I wasn’t crazy. I told you they could catch it…make it…do it…heal it…win it!

Every baby born comes with a certificate of hope pinned by a divine kiss to its crown, fragile or fleeting as it may seem. As if to say, I come from a place of possibilities, a place of miracles, a place of dreams, of dignity and stars and cosmic certainty. A place bigger than this moment, bigger than this view, a place of plenty. A place that would scare you with beauty, silence you with awe, and shock you with compassion. A place of grace. There is more. When we choose hope in the midst of our rocky lives, I think we invoke that place.

Have you ever been on a long road trip when an interstate sign pops up, telling you the next rest stop is over a hundred miles away? That’s about the time your bladder says, “We’re going to have a problem.” There’s a good chance that before you saw the sign, you weren’t even aware of ocean tides, dripping faucets, or the Beatles song “Yellow Submarine,” but now it’s all you can think about. You imagine your car being found hours later on the side of the road, with all that remains of you melted into a pool of yellow liquid on your car seat.

Occasionally, I feel that way in life. When do we reach the rest stop? When do we get out of the car, stretch our legs, change the radio station, and maybe check the map to make sure we’re going the right way? Are we late… early… or just way off course? Where’s AAA when you need them to come and fix all this?

The trouble is, we don’t often get the interstate signs in life. We don’t know how long hard times will last. What do we do in those moments? How do we hold on to hope?

How should I know? I’m just a humor columnist.

But since we’re in the same car, making conversation to pass the miles to the next rest stop, I can at least tell you some of the things that help me.

The first thing I do is remind myself that even though we use the word “unprecedented” a lot as a human race, we’ve been in places like this before. Humanity tends to ebb and flow like the ocean between tragedy and triumph. The same can be said for most of our lives. There are moments when it feels like you’ve laced your shoes too tightly for a marathon, you’re only twelve miles in, and you’ve just discovered you forgot to put on pants. Then there are moments that are brilliant and beautiful, and you can’t believe the radio is playing “your” song.

The next thing I do is remind myself that humans are the new super drug and that being with them (especially the right ones) reinvigorates and distracts me, and often subtly tricks me into seeing the good around me.

And finally, (and I really hate talking about this once again, maybe because I remain so bad at it), I choose to announce the good I see out loud. My sister-in-law, Ashlee Elmore, told me about a study that revealed the importance of the first few minutes of the day. It said that if you can train yourself in the first 5-10 minutes to list the things you are specifically grateful for, it can alter the course of your entire day. So far, I have found this to be true! In my immediate minutes of waking, I list (out loud) the things I am thankful for: a warm house on a cold night, the people in my home…and then my mind drifts to the day before, and I think about all the good things that transpired. And then, like I’m suffering from a gratitude virus, I find myself going through the whole day noticing “good” in my life. If I’m really aware, that good will outweigh the “suck,” which is pretty wonderful if you can make it happen.

Just talking about this makes me feel like we are already getting closer to the rest stop.

Bishop Desmond Tutu said, ”Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

I say that hope is the ultimate act of defiance. It says, “In the face of everything else, I choose to believe, to hope. That’s a choice no one can take from me. That’s a choice no one can make for me.”

Hope is a way we can remain true to ourselves.

So, until I see you next month - hold on to hope. It is part of who you are…the human condition. It is an act of defiance. And there is always something to hope for.

Cheers, friends. There is so much good that can be done. Let's go out and do it.