Hope: Heavy or Light?

 

When I was a kid, I had a dream that I was in Care-a-Lot (the place where the Care Bears lived). I climbed up ladders from one cloud to another, exploring. I laid down on a bed of clouds. It was comfortable. It felt like heaven.

And then I woke up. I remember being so upset and trying to fall back asleep, hoping I could find my way back to that dream. Who wouldn’t want to live up in the clouds? I thought.

I never found that dream again. The threads of it had unravelled as soon as I woke. It had floated away.

The traditional Christian imagery for hope is an anchor (Hebrews 6:18-19), but my thoughts on hope have often drifted from that image to something lighter. I’ve imagined the word “hope” written in the language of clouds, the edges soft and backlit by a pink sun, spacious, billowy, heavenly. A Care-a-Lot of possibility.

I’ve always thought of hope as a light; a glow off in the distance, high up, out of reach, yet we reach for it—and the further away the light is, the more we strain to reach it.

We hope it won’t rain on the day we’re hosting a barbecue. We hope we got into the fastest line at the border, the best lane on the highway during a traffic jam—and we hope the car behind us doesn’t rear-end us when we brake quickly and suddenly. We hope our friends are in some of the same classes as we are. We hope our kids make good choices. We reach for these pleasant outcomes, holding our hands out and most of the time watching cirrus mist drift through our fingers. Insubstantial and dreamy. Hope floats on by and if we’re lucky, we might feel the breeze of it on our faces some of the time.

This is the problem with clouds. They float away and they constantly change shape. The wind blows them away carelessly. We can hope for a good many outcomes, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. Hope as clouds is a messy cluster of errant wishes; we can’t control anything through hope except perhaps a positive mindset—which is at risk of becoming a jaded one, as we make our way through our lives, as hope sifts through our fingers or sits off in the distance as a subtle idea but fails to be anything of substance.

What then, is hope? Why does it feel like it should be so light and airy when that also means it's inconsistent and unrealiable? 

Let’s go back to the heavy metal anchor. In a world like ours, I think I need something more substantial. I think I’m finally beginning to understand the draw of the anchor.

As soon as our hopes become desperate about problems or situations that are serious and deeply rooted, as soon as our happiness is at stake and our sense of life being inherently good is compromised, once we’ve struggled enough in life, can we simply “hope” that there are better days ahead? Can we go on with our heads in the clouds, still finding silver linings, believing that everything will work out, even though we have little control over those outcomes? What's the point? When I really, seriously need or want something, when I cannot be positive, floating around in a happy glow doesn't make sense. I want to hug my knees in the dark.

Maybe hope really is something found in the grit of the ocean floor rather than a cumulus cloud. Maybe true hope is found in the rock-bottom moments that actually begin with a feeling of hopelessness. The gritty anchor is the heavy, grounded object that prevents us from drifting off to sea, shrouded in mist. It prevents us from floating away, from getting lost, from losing ourselves.

Maybe being connected to the anchor allows us to float into the sky, into the clouds. Maybe the imagery of an anchor is significant because it’s a steadfast object, and when you’re talking about being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see, the clouds are not enough. A belief that isn’t rooted in something solid can deteriorate. I can float up to the clouds if I want. I can dream of Care-a-Lot, I can be positive, but always, constantly, as the clouds float by, and if I find myself struggling, I need to cling to the constant chain that connects me to the immoveable anchor. An inverted fall arrest system. Gravity for grave situations.

Hope makes sense to me when I place it in the hands of my Creator, who is way bigger than this Earth and my little life. Hope makes sense to me when I understand that life is full of troubles and even in the face of failure, pain or lost dreams, even when the clouds turn dark, I can still hold on to the anchor, to God's promises and to the hope of heaven. He'll sit with me, in the dark, underwater, when I cannot look up at the bright side. Until I can look at the bright side.

Hope feels airy, but it’s connected like a ship, light on the seas, to a heavy anchor. Hope is a glow, not off in the distance but inside of us. When it feels like something far away and out of reach, we can stop reaching for those misty clouds and coming back empty-handed, and we start reaching in our hearts for God’s promises.

I like being positive and seeing the silver lining in problems, but when my head isn’t in the clouds, when life throws me underwater and the currents rock me, you’ll find me gripping the chain attached to the anchor, holding fast. Or maybe I’ll find you there, or maybe others; it’s a very long chain and we can help each other hold on.

Even when I'm in the clouds, imagining the infinite possibilities of God's promises, I’m going to hold on. 

Even when I can't see the anchor, I know it's there.