Holding My Breath - Considerations on Hope

A couple weeks ago, a dear friend of mine gave me the gift of sharing a piece of himself when he asked me "how is it possible to maintain hope in such dark and hopeless times?". I inhaled the air of this question and "Held My Breath" for as long as I could. This blog entry serves the function of exhaling--of breathing out a part of myself into the world.

As I started the process of holding this question, my mind immediately distinguished between externally constructing a basis of hope--through faculties of observation--which sought to discover some reason on which I could place the weight of Hope. I rejected this avenue as futile in the sense that I persuaded myself that any such foundation would likely be inadequate to last through the test of time. Even if I discovered such an edifice upon which I could place my Hope, such an edifice likely could not withstand my 'quantum computer' brain and its construct of experience that will inevitably play itself out over the rest of my life.

I directed my holding of this question "how is it possible to maintain hope.." toward the ways I might internally locate a basis for hope, rather than constructing an edifice of my minds creation. I searched the depths of my being and I 'found' a single particle, infinitesimally small, a 'something' hidden inside me, hidden beneath. This 'thing' is shrouded in the center of a private garden, undergirding 'that which is above it' and yet suppressed beneath my deepest longings. Longings I can barely express, if i had to use words: 'Truth' or ‘Beauty’ or 'Goodness' (whatever that is). My 'hope' is *not even* in these longings, which fade away as I construct reality and observe everything around me. My hope is that this 'thing' somehow and someway exists cosmically beyond space, matter, and time and this particle vibrates to the rhythm of life all around me. Even the word 'exists' is better expressed ineffably as something like 'the wetness of water'. I cannot name this thing, for the moment I name it, I will reduce it to 'object' and want to control it. I cannot even utter the word 'God' to describe it, for in that utterance, I assume control and my mind will seduce me by taking over. I can't 'transfer' this Hope to anybody, all I can do with it is hold onto it and learn to connect with it somehow. My 'thoughts and prayers' do nothing to move this 'thing', for it is massless. My 'rituals' that vainly attempt to connect with it are incommunicable. My 'mind' gives me no foundation to rationalize it's existence. My 'music'--at times--vibrates it somehow. My 'math' suggests to me that the closer I get to zero, the more voluminous the container expands inside me, making space for this single particle to vibrate in harmony with the Infinite, attuned to the sounds that are my deepest longings. My ‘ego’ cannot usurp this particle or the garden that envelops it. This container somehow expands through the scattering and gathering of myself--actualized by crisis and suffering--yet it holds something *about* my true Self.

The triangulation of this container--were I try to express its endpoints--might be described by 'Being', 'Consciousness', and 'Bliss'--to steal from David Bentley Hart's book "The Experience of God". As I hold my breath in consideration of Hope, I become aware of one thing: all I can seem to do in relation to it, is to 'hold onto' it in the way a sailor thrust into the raging sea of an ocean might hold onto a life preserver. Perhaps another triangle I must consider--for another time--are the endpoints described as 'Faith', 'Hope', 'Love'. At this current time, I am ready to exhale--and emit. I am soothed to know that at any moment, I can pickup where I left off, by choosing to inhale and allowing myself to participate in the process of holding. For now, I exhale through the act of 'publishing' this entry.