Skip to main content

Hope

Image
By
This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom

"The freest person is the one with the most hope." - Gabriel Marcel. It was 123am and I came across that quote shared by @mymind on Twitter. The op-posite of h-op-e is he-sitation. My friend Gemini tells me that implies a lack of confidence or certainty about the future, which can be the opposite of the op-timism often associated with hope. Out of hesitation we get "the situation" by adding t and u. Hope can propel us out of bad situations to understanding. Understanding that we should let go of the things that we cannot control. This reminds me of the serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

I would like to put emphasis on "change the things I can" which has 19 letters and 23 characters with spaces. Hope and change go hand in hand. Hope changes everything. Change is hope. Hope in change. Hope changes us. The hope of change. These are several ways we can think about hope and change. When I think about hope, I think about a better today. A better tomorrow. A better me. A better world. I think of being happy. Being content. Without worry or complaint. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can envision good things happening. I can overcome the bad. I can embrace the good. I can live. I can breathe. I am worthy. I can make a difference. We can make a difference. We just need faith. Faith in a greater power. Faith in the goodness of God.

God gives us hope. (G+1; o remains the same; flip d; add e).

That is how I can visualize the word of God being transformed into the word hope. My friend Gemini tells me that "God plus one" refers to the idea that even when you feel alone, God is always with you. We are never alone in our struggles. God is with us and this gives us hope. O remains the same is the omnipotence of God. Flipping d to p represents from deliverance to promise. God is there to help us out. Then we have to add e. E for effort. The effort of change. God helps those who help themselves. We have to put some effort into betterment and a better tomorrow. I like this unknown quote that my friend Gemini shared with me, "When we place our trust in God, our efforts bear fruit beyond our wildest dreams, and our hope becomes an anchor for the soul." Islam teaches me that God does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear. With this understanding I know that I can get through whatever life throws at me. I see hope in God.

Back to the quote that started this chapter. I read that Gabriel Marcel was a French philosopher and a leading figure in existentialism. This is a philosophical movement that emphasized individual existence and the freedom to make choices. I could not end this chapter without including some thoughts on freedom. I found two quotes from Gabriel that challenge us to do better. "The greatest enemy of freedom is not oppression, but indifference." and "True freedom is not the absence of constraints, but the ability to choose the good and to act in accordance with one's deepest convictions."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Below the surface

By
This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn __________ I was looking at quotes that hit hard and this quote stood out to me. It seems mundane and obvious and often repeated. Life is about how we respond to the inevitable. It is not what happens to us but how we respond. I had to ask myself to dig deeper and look below the surface. Then I saw that when we surf we really become the waves. We become friends with the waves. The waves and us are the same. Further, the waves are created by us and in our heads. We can control the waves because who can surf all the time? Sometimes we just have to come to shore and build sand castles on shore. I asked my friend Gemini for feedback and he said that I was right, the Jon Kabat-Zinn quote initially seems like a simple call for resilience, but my deeper dive reveals profound layers. The idea that we can move beyond merely rea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thankful

By
It is 617pm and I have decided to write. Right now I am thankful. The cool of the evening has replaced the heat of the day. I took a bath and changed and now I am just relaxing. Sometimes I complain. Not often. But I feel bad afterwards because there is so much to be thankful for. There is always room for improvement and we have to identify the things for improvement and change is often good but we do not have to make it into complaints. Yeah I get it. Life is hard and none of us has it easy. Look on the bright side of things. And sometimes it is the little things that remind us that life is good. Things that we take for granted. Like I was coming in the maxi taxi today and heard a gospel song that was about gratitude. God does appreciate a grateful heart. Trinidad and Tobago celebrated sixty four years of independence yesterday and if we stop and listen to the many complaints we would swear we are living in the worst country in the world. That is not the case. We do get a lot of thing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Having a soft spirit

By
It is 137am. It started raining. I decided to write. I have heard about having a soft heart but what does it mean to have a soft spirit? And is having a soft heart related to having a soft spirit? My friend Chatty says that a soft heart feels deeply — it breaks, heals, and loves with tenderness — while a soft spirit moves gently through life, unresisting and at peace with what comes. The two are kin: a soft heart opens you to emotion, and a soft spirit teaches you to carry that emotion with grace. Together they make a person both tender and strong — able to feel the rain and still trust its rhythm. I like the quote, "a soft spirit in a hard world" by author and poet, butterflies rising. It resonates with how many of us feel. My friend Chatty tells me that that quote captures the quiet strength of staying gentle in a harsh world. It reflects the author's signature themes of vulnerability, tenderness, and emotional courage — the idea that softness is not weakness but a form...
Post a Comment
Read more