Author: Jon

Aspiring Writer and Blogger. Former Banker, Teacher, Headmaster and Pastor.

Hope and Political Parties

hands-1697898_640This blog site is a forum for the overall theme of hope.  As it unfolds in this post, hope arises when our most basic beliefs are allowed voice to shape our attitudes, which in turn, influence our responses.  There is synchronicity and harmony – a good place for hope to flourish.   

As an example, if we have hope in a belief in economic justice, a resulting attitude might be that everyone will willingly pay their fair share of taxes and, as a response, should be able to make use of their fair share of the resources needed for living.  This in turn leads to conflict and resulting responses when economic justice is not present.  Labor unrest, concern for the rising cost of healthcare and disagreement concerning how fair taxes should be collected are just three of the possible responses to the attitudes we act out based on our belief and hope that economic justice will prevail.  So the question of hope existing in a world where economic justice functions as a core value is, how are our lives affected by the activity of our current legislative processes and the willingness of the people we have elected to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are available to all?

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Finding Hope One Step At A Time – Step Three

digits-705666_640“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.  The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” – Marcus Aurelius

This is the third and final post in my series concerning the topic of finding hope.  Originally, I was going to end this series with a call to action, calling leadership at all levels of community, to provide all people with good reasons to hope.  In a sense, I was going to ask you all to call upon our leaders to provide and institute actions that would solve the problems that I discussed in the second installment of this series.

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Finding You, Finding Hope, Finding Peace

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About the time I hit my stride, it was, regrettably, time to retire.  It might have been an easier transition if I had not had to contend with unexpected multiple back surgeries and unanticipated struggles with mobility and balance.  Not only did my body stop functioning in a manner to which I had grown quite accustomed, but my thinking process, my day to day reason for being, suddenly offered me no direction in which to proceed.

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A Gentle Reminder

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Before you read any other posts that predate this one, linger here.  It will provide context for all the posts before this one.  It is also the context in which all future posts will be written.  The quote is from Joseph Addison, an English essayist, poet, and statesman.   He lived from 1672-1719.

“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something  to hope for.”

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Finding Hope One Step At A Time – Step Two

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Beliefs lead to actions which lead to outcomes.

When you believe in something you act in accord with those beliefs and your subsequent actions result in outcomes of hope or disappointment.   It really is that simple.  Put another way, choosing what you believe in and what actions you decide to take in living out your beliefs results in either living with a sense of hope or with a sense that things are “out of your control.”  If we give up the right to hold individual beliefs or to freely act in accordance with our beliefs, feelings of anxiety, tension, anger, and disappointment can take the place of the hope we are seeking.

I promised that I would share some “good news” with you in the second installment of this three-part series on hope.  To that end I want to offer eight “beliefs” that influence many of us.  Then I will suggest “good news” actions that can result in hopeful outcomes.  For the discerning among the folks who are reading this post, you may recognize the eight beliefs to which I am refering.  These beliefs substantially affect the quality of our lives and consequently our sense of worth.

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Finding Hope One Step At A Time-Step One

digits-705666_640It all has to do with money.  It’s just that simple.  Ever since our Founding Fathers declared that we should all be free to strive after life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, too few resources have been chasing too many folks wanting their rightful share of the resources available.  This has created innumerable problems as the population of the USA has grown.  We have outspent ourselves as a country and we have not figured out how, or even why, we should pay for what things cost.

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A Three Step Plan

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What do you believe in?  Does that belief offer you hope?  And if you aren’t offered hope resulting in a better outcome, of what value are your beliefs?

Nothing but bad news!  I am disappointed with the news that reaches us.  Perhaps you are too?  No matter whether we turn to network news sources, cable, internet or general social media, we are being bombarded with news that for the most part, does not inspire or offer solutions to an ever growing list of what’s wrong with the world.

So this blog, dedicated to the theme of hope, will cease to be relevant unless it can offer you some good news, some solutions to the problems that confront us.  So here is my plan.

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Words from Anonymous

Someone who is now remembered only as Anonymous speaks with words that cannot be better assembled.  A smart writer, when confronted with such words, does not attempt to transform those words for his or her own purposes.  To you, my Anonymous source, my thanks for the words you have written.

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Hope works in these ways:  it looks for the good in people instead of harping on the worst; it discovers what can be done instead of grumbling about what cannot; it regards problems, large or small, as opportunities; it pushes ahead when it would be easy to quit; it “lights the candle” instead of “cursing the darkness.”    Anonymous

 

 

 

Three Themes to Help You Encounter Hope

hope-handWhen you were growing up, what kinds of things did you wish for?  Did you wish for good grades, did you wish the acne to disappear from your face, or did you wish that you could take back some words you thoughtlessly hurled at someone in your class?  What’s that quote, “wishing doesn’t make it so?”  No, to get good grades or to have a clear complexion or to resolve the hurt your words caused, you and you alone have to take action.  Your wishes, if they can be granted at all, require you to act.

But then of course, even if you study hard, wash your face three times daily or apologize to the person cut down by your words, your wishes still may not come true.  It’s a fifty/fifty chance that your wishes will prevail.  It all depends on you and even that may not sufficient.  Wishes being fulfilled are no sure foundation on which to stake your future.

What about hoping?  As an adult what do you hope for?  Do you hope that there really is an afterlife, do you hope that all people will be treated with justice and compassion, or do you hope that your employer doesn’t declare bankruptcy, leaving you out of work with no pension to fall back on? These hopes are not affected by your ability to bring them about on your own.

Hoping requires that we consider the three concepts of Expectation, Assurance, and Trust.  As an illustration of how to encounter hope, let me use the example of your employer’s ability to stay in business and keep you employed.

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Confronting the Darkness of Uncertainty

maxresdefaultWhat goes through your mind when a thunderstorm suddenly rages outside, and in an instant, you are left in darkness as all the lights go out?  No candles, no flashlights, just the darkness.

George Iles, a 19th century author of articles concerning various scientific topics wrote, “Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” Darkness is one of our earliest fears isn’t it?  It may be close to a universal fear.  We desire to see all that is before us and when we are unable to do so, our imagination begins to work overtime.  We see things that aren’t really there, we hear things that cause the hairs on the back of our necks to stand up, or we imagine all sorts of danger looming just over there in the shadows.

I am told that as a very young child I slept with a nightlight on in my bedroom.  We lived in a large, old multi-storied house that creaked and groaned. Having a very active imagination, I conjured up all sorts of creatures lurking in and around our house who made those noises to prepare me for certain doom as their hands reached out for me in the darkness.

At some point I decided the ghosts and goblins and assorted sprites who were trying to scare me no longer would bother me.  I figured if they had wanted to take me to some nether land of the spirit underworld, I would have already been their captive.  That I had survived that fate gave me hope the darkness and whatever it held would not, could not harm me.  A sense of grace-filled survival became the best antidote to the darkness, my fear or my negative thinking.

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