Hope Beyond All Understanding!

Hope Beyond All Understanding!

 ©Allen Merritt (2016)

A couple weeks back, the valley where I live was permeated with smoke drifting in from blazing wildfires. For a day it was cloudy-like and smelled like a campfire. I could taste it in the back of my throat. Today, wildfires continue to burn all over the place. As a result, this weekend the entire valley is once again shrouded in thick whiteness impacting air quality and creating low visibility. 

Interestingly, according to the weather authorities this time it was NOT necessarily due to the wildfires, but to dust. Either way, the buildings were surrounded by nothing but white veils. One could not see the mountains or beyond a certain distance. Personally, I stayed indoors as much as possible. Every time I looked out the window I was struck by the vastness of the cloud cover. It was not like storm clouds, but filtered down around you.

This white curtain likened itself to heavy smog, fog, thick haze, smoke and/or heavy cloud cover. As I pondered it, I realized there were correlations and potential messages/lessons to be discovered toward creating something positive out of a negative situation. Ergo, today I want to talk about the idea of hope for things unseen. When life seems covered in darkness and nothing seems to be happening, hope is standing right there on the perimeter to prove something is there waiting for us to discover it.

For me, I did not see darkness here. No, it was whiteness. It reminded me of a foggy day in San Francisco. Although you cannot see much in front of you, you know that things are there. This fog does not stop us from moving about and getting our work done. We step cautiously so as not to run into someone or bump into a building. And, eventually that cloud cover would burn off with the help of the sun. Isn’t that how hope presents itself? The future is right in front of us, but we don’t always see it due to the distractions.

In the same way, pilots often have to navigate through thick cloud cover to maneuver their planes safely from one destination to another, often traveling blindly. Navigational instruments help determine what lies ahead to assure them the plane will move up, over and around any endangerment. There is trust and hope in the idea that although we do not see those mountains and obstacles coming, we are somehow maneuvering around them to land safely on the other side. That, in and of itself, is enough to make me smile and think on how hope really does spring eternal.

I have seen walls of sand and dust rise up out of the desert and move over the landscape forcing everything to stop until it passed over. You couldn’t see anything and had to take cover to avoid being pummeled by rocks and debris. Of course, this was a storm. But the analogy of not seeing what lies around you and also in knowing that there is something there brings me back to how we must hold on to the idea of hope in our lives at every turn and juncture.

I was captured further as I witnessed this whiteness lying over the valley about how this speaks to the idea of how we are able to truly move mountains. There indeed are mountains around us and usually I can clearly see them. I know they are there, but not today. Nature just removed the mountains if only for a short while. I am thinking there is more than one way to move or move around mountains.

Looking at this experience through positive lenses demonstrates to me the power we all have as human beings to see beyond our circumstances, to have faith in what lies beyond them and experiencing a grand sense of hope in moving beyond anything and everything in the best possible way. It isn’t always easy when you are in the midst of having to travel through such heaviness, but slowing down, taking a breath and moving forward with caution and steady footing helps us come out the other side and see what’s really out there in the wild blue yonder.

I am always amazed when I fly and come up and over cloud cover to see a blue sky and sunshine. It leaves an indelible impression on me of hope beyond any and all understanding. It is there. It exists and it is real. Let us be reminded of such hope and hopefulness this week no matter what is going on in our lives, our families, our communities, our jobs, and our country or in our world. Know that hope springs eternal and is out there waiting for us to embrace it without ceasing.

Have a great week.

Cheers.