Hope

There's something about Christmas that gives us all a sense of newness and hope.

I have a "notes" section on my phone that I use constantly. I love lists. I write down the names of recommended movies and books and I have an ongoing Costco list (cheese, chicken breasts and laundry detergent) and Walmart list (toilet paper and cereal), but I also write down random bits such as quotes from books or the names of people I need to remember.

I have this one note that's been there for a few years now and all it says is, "Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope... page 279." Do you think I made a note for which book it came from? No. I have no idea why it was important enough to me that day to write it down, but I guess I can take something from it today, the day where hope is supposed to have disappeared: the end of the world.

What is hell? I think everyone at some point has burnt their forearm on the frigging oven rack while reaching in to pull out a cookie sheet. It hurts! Do you think any of us would want to feel that for eternity after we die? A whole-body eternal cookie sheet burn without the reward of soft gooey chocolate chip cookies to self-sooth our woes? Don't put me on the sign-up list, that's for sure. So we are told that there's a hell and that we have a choice of whether or not to avoid it. Hmm... that's a toughie. Pass me my wings and halo and send me up to the chocolate chip cookies and can I get an "amen, sister!?"

But it's certainly not hard to believe that we have our own hell here on earth, that we really need not wait until the end of the world to suffer its burning heat. But the hope that we hold if we so choose is that today is a new day full of the people we love, the peace that comes with making the right choices, and the joy that is birthed out of these surroundings. If we don't have hope for "what is to come" then we will spend our lives stuck inside an incubator of hopelessness.

What works for me today, is that I choose to focus on the good parts (there are so many!) of this last year, and hold out hope for many more in the year to come.

I hope for much peace, love and joy to you and your loved ones!