Wednesday, November 4, 2020

HOPEFULNESS

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

That is my prayer today.

Anyone that really knows me knows that I am not an “everything is good” type of person. I am not prone to pink paint over poop. I am by persona somewhat hesitant, questioning, even skeptical. Attempts have been made to shame me in that. It does not work. I befriended those aspects of me long ago. Those capacities were needed and have served me well. By befriending them I now use them whereas they used to use me. They are now a part of my discernment process, and I appreciate that even when others do not. Like doubt hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism have been guides that have kept me on my path.

They have also increased my sense of hopefulness.

I do not immediately believe something just because someone says it is so. It does not matter how much authority the person has. It does not matter how many other people believe it. I forge my own path with hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism as part of my GPS system. It is what helps keep me hopeful. Even in times when many around me are losing hope.

Not believing something at face value has become a superpower for me. It gives me the opportunity to take my own dive below the surface of what is happening. In that dive I move through the meaning others are applying to situations and circumstances. I question assumptions. I am hesitant to react just because everyone else is reacting. I am skeptical about the individual and the collective stories that are swirling around me. When I am centered and clearest, I doubt before I believe.

This is all in service of my own personal sense of hopefulness.

Hope for me is independent of outer appearances. Hope is a state of being. A lens through which I view life. It is a process that becomes a verb. It is how I hold chaos, disturbance, and drama. I apply it imperfectly yet relentlessly. For this skeptic hopefulness is a fulltime job.

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

By always seeking for the deeper meanings via my hesitancy and doubt I do not fuel stories with my precious life energy. Stories that most often are not even true. When I question enough to discern another’s bias, I lessen the chance of getting caught in the web they are weaving. By not pouring the pink paint over the poop flowers of expanded awareness are freer to grow. By not calling evil good I can use my discernment to call out what is indeed dark, and not pretend it is Light.

I have said it many times and I will say it again: It is not all good. It may be all FOR good. Yet it is not all good. Not by a long shot.

How do I know?

My hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism taught me.

And now my hopefulness sustains me.

Writing this as the country waits in the balance of an uncalled election result there is tension all around. There is seemingly endless speculation and narrative. Pundits on both sides are proclaiming what it all means.

I do not believe a word of it.

Which is why I feel a deep sense of hopefulness that is transcendent of outcome.

I am hopeful in that I see unrevealed aspects of consciousness being streamed in ways that are unmistakable. What has not been questioned, acknowledged, integrated is up for review. We need to doubt what we thought was true. It never was. We need to be skeptical about the values we have said we live by. We have not. We need to be hesitant about trying to rapidly find a fix for all the problems we are being forced to face. We will not.

Only when enough of us hesitate, question, doubt, and skeptically look into the deeper recesses of our being will hopefulness rise from the depths. It will rise like the phoenix from the ashes of our despair. We as a country have said we were one thing and we have governed like something entirely unlike our constitution and declaration. And we have done so with far too little questioning. Hence our time of reckoning.

I am aware that this election could be called before this is even published. There will be many who will feel triumphant. There will be many in the throws of despair.

I will be in neither camp.

I will be hesitant to apply meaning to whatever outcome is decided. I will question what the deeper meaning is for me and only for me. I will be skeptical of the projections of the futurist. I will doubt the forecasts of doom or of delivery from some elected outer savior.

That is not pink paint.

That is the hopefulness derived from a doubtful dive into deeper consciousness. It is a hopefulness that is well earned. It was hard fought and profoundly unpopular when shared. And I am more than okay with that.

I rarely believe other’s opinions of me anymore.

I am too skeptical for that.

So, perhaps consider what I say. Question and be sure to doubt it. Try it on. Cast it away. I was admittedly a little hesitant to share it.

If it touches one heart and causes you to question, then perhaps my hopefulness will be helpful.

I pray that it is so.