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Hope springs eternal... The Battle Creek Enquirers’ Eric J. Greene said that “hope is a choice for everyone”. In the article below, he asks; “do you allow yourself to hope?” He said hope requires courage and trust. He also warned that hope requires cultivation and practice before it blossoms. He said hope spreads “like fingers through a lover's hair”. He said that “we can allow ourselves to hope for the things we cannot provide or perform with our own hands.” His words gave me pause for on so many Christmas Eve’s past, I had driven to the Lakeside Bakery on Columbia for a dozen or so of fresh, hot, hard rolls sprinkled with numerous little black seeds- they were always sold out.  This year with Eric J. Greene’s words in mind I hoped, and then I hoped some more. I hoped until I fell asleep. And so it was that I woke up that cold Monday morning hoping that this was my year; that it was going to happen. It did. I got my hard rolls; the exact ones I always wanted, but never before hoped for. Thank you Eric. Oh, one more thing; I got my butt out of bed an hour earlier.

Battle Creek Enquirer

Eric J. Greene: Hope is a choice for everyone

Do you allow yourself to hope?

It's not an easy achievement, hope, because it requires a mixture of courage in oneself and trust in the unknowable. It doesn't come naturally, either, for only through cultivation does it remain alive and practice does it blossom.

This season each year, we hear much about hope in connection with Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, from whom Christians believe all hope springs.

Regardless of spiritual beliefs, the matter of hope is a universal endeavor, ever the medicine for what ails us, the flint that ignites idealism. A triumph when achieved. A dark place when out of reach.

Hope is the oxygen in the soul of humanity. Without it, we're dead. Even those who choose to wail and moan and appear to have none are surviving because hope exists in the majority and methodically spreads into the far corners like fingers through a lover's hair.

In hospital rooms and funeral parlors, hope keeps the walls from caving in and burying us in the choking rubble that is despair. It steadies our hands and softens our tongues in a shifting workplace or unhappy home. It rhythmically calms the anxiety en route to an accident scene: "I hope they're OK, I hope they're OK, I hope they're OK."

With hope is the expectation that things will, indeed, be OK. Not only do we want a positive outcome, but part of us believes we see exactly that, however fuzzy and distant, in our future. Too much of that expectation dances into naiveté. Too little sinks into cynicism. Both are equally dangerous territories where true hope is attacked or marginalized.

In a world dominated by force and the pursuit of power, there seems little room, little need and little toleration for hope. But hope isn't just for the powerless, though they need it more than most, because even the mighty need the unexpected reassurance that comes with hope and its spiritual companion, faith. If we're to overcome this obstacle of life without at least occasional doses of hope, we're lost in a cold and foamy sea of confusion.

Encouragingly, we can allow ourselves to hope without fear of going soft. We can allow ourselves to hope for the things we cannot provide or perform with our own hands. We can allow ourselves to hope in the comforting sense that, in the end, we're not in control of our own destinies. This kind of hope is like a warm blanket.

We can give ourselves permission to hope like little children on Christmas morning, fully present in the moment of giving and receiving without inhibition or ulterior motivation.

Sometimes, we'll find ourselves dragged down and seemingly beaten, unable or unwilling to grit our teeth and move forward. That's when we need hope the most. If we're lucky, we'll stand up, shake our fist at dismay and hope for the best — the absolute best — and patiently wait for what's next.

It's a choice we all have, so the question remains: Do you allow yourself to hope?