Hope in Action or No Hope At All

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

-Emily Dickinson

Among certain circles, it’s often said that love is not a feeling but an action. There is much truth to that. If we waited for the warm, fuzzy feelings of love to inspire action, there’s a whole lot of family life and activity in the world that would just never get done.

Something similar can be said of hope. One usually cannot sustain sunshiny feeling of bright prospects and a world beyond this mess without actions, hope concretized. And, like actions of love, it is always a daring thing.

To be with majorly depressed people is to see what life without hope is like. “Why shower?” they ask, “We’ll just get dirty tomorrow.” There’s no need to wash a few dishes because those mean nothing in the face of the deluge that is sure to follow. There’s no need to attempt the exhausting pursuit of something different and interesting, because, they say, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Surprisingly (or not, depending on where you begin), hopeless people can be the most rational and pragmatic. One must concede that there is no reason to expect relationships to improve or personal faults to become more manageable. Buckle up for worse and worser, because surely that is all that is in store.

But there is something in the human spirit, a spark of that Divine Life infinitely superior, that defies quantifiability. There are minor miracles every day, from a child’s development to recovery from illness, moments of radical connection, and an indefatigable sense that it is all worthwhile.

Yet, trying anything holds the risk of looking foolish. Not trying gives one a perceived immunity. There can be a form of minimalism that is not about eliminating excess and the superfluous but about winnowing away anything that could result in disappointment. It can seem easier never to have tried instead of trying something and left with the mediocre results or abject failure that most activities produce.

Whether with the kitchen sink or one’s bed, there are many good, physical places to begin. Surely, one will eat and sleep most days. In those spaces recognize the miraculous quality of cleaning and ordering to begin anew each day. Embodied acts of hope can train the mind.

We often think that our thoughts determine our actions, but sometimes it seems the other way ‘round. We see ourselves storing up, cleaning out, trying afresh and we may begin to feel so very much more hopeful. The paralysis of the smartphone beckoning us to sedentary consumption leads us down a path of despair.

But what happens when you go to wash the dishes and the dishwasher parts are prematurely disintegrating, minuscule plastic parts shattering one after the other? Washing by hand is an option, but then not very handy. Or is it too handy? Too hands-on in any event. And where does it all dry? Then, when making the bed, one discovers the need for new pillows and the floor behind the headboard needs dusting and, horror of horrors, is that dog hair from the home’s previous owners’ pet sticking to the curtains draped without washing for a truly astonishing length of time?

Even the most hope-inducing activities can be challenging in the good-feelings department. But then, sometimes something happens. Perhaps someone makes a homemade trap spread with peanut butter and laced with borax and no less than twenty cockroaches lose their lives suffocating in poisoned goo and the likelihood of encountering one of those hideous, two-inch-long monstrosities in the middle of the night and wondering if a child left a grape on the floor as its guts squish out in a sickening crunch and—beholding all those dead cockroaches—it all seems so much more manageable and life goes on as it always does. Ever onward and upwards!

Wash the dishes, make the bed, and place the cockroach traps. You’ll see it is a life worth living after all.