On Hope

Robert Bridges said two things on hope that I've been thinking about:

I live on hope and I think do all
Who come into the world.

To me, hope is a motivator and promise of change for the better. In this context I'm not thinking about "Ultimate Hope" (as defined by Elder Maxwell)--the hope that Moroni writes about, the hope that is rooted in the Atonement. I am thinking about the hope that brings us to change, the hope that causes excitement, that helps us look forward to the sun rising of a new day. If I have time tonight, I will try to explain how I think Ultimate Hope is connected to the lesser hope, but I have work early tomorrow so I doubt that I will have time.

Hope can be simple, like the the shortened breath that comes when you see a girl out of the corner of your eye and think that, maybe, maybe, she'll notice you. Or hope can be complex, the vision of what you may become in one year (or ten) if you stick to such and such plan, and accomplish this or that goal. Hope is short term and long term; it races with the minutes and glides with the hours.

Sometimes I hope for things that I know will not come true. Why is that? Is hope the prelude of dreams? Not the "met up with some friends in high school, turned into a root beer popsicle and melted all over Kiera Knightly's Oscar dress" crazy dreams we have at night. I mean the dreams that I had when I was thirteen, staring out the foggy bus window, watching field after field go past, thinking about foreign lands and adventures and the excitments of adult life. The dreams that you are too afraid to write down, because if your little sister ever found them, she would tease you until you were forty, and if your mom ever found them, she would beam to all the relief society that her son, that ambitous little guy, wanted to do such and such and gab gab gab gab gab gab gab.......

And now on to R. Bridges second quote:

Our hope is ever livelier than despair, our joy
Livelier and more abiding than our sorrows are.

I just realized it's almost 11. I have to work early tomorrow, so I will think more on the subject, fix all these thoughts (because I have been typing away without thinking), and continue on some later day.