This 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?
When 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.
What 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.