Saturday, March 4, 2017

#SOL17: Dóchas

Possibilities (M.A. Reilly, 2014)


Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a practice that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It’s a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.
Krista Tippett. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (p. 233). 


I.

I have been driving--feeling the road beneath the tires and I cannot say what makes me wonder this but I do: Is being hopeful the same thing as feeling hopeful? The question lingers, stays with me. Smoke to the mind, curling between synapses.

I ask others and most seem to weigh in with a more positive nod towards feeling hopeful as opposed to being hopeful.

I cannot say more as I do not know.


II.

In the country of my birth, dóchas means hope and given our history, the Irish are a hopeful people. We have learned to disconnect hope from probability and anchor it, instead, to possibility.

All things are possible.


III.

Seamus Heaney, a patron saint of sorts,  wrote:

History says, Don't hope 
On this side of the grave, 
But then, once in a lifetime 
The longed-for tidal wave 
Of justice can rise up 
And hope and history rhyme.

IV.

It is March. Spring is a whisper away and all things feel possible today.

And there, on the slim horizon, just out of reach we can see justice rising up like the true warrior she is.

And I like to imagine that Seamus and my dear sweet Rob are taking tea somewhere beyond here and talking about hope and history.

Hear the rhyme.
Hear it.

13 comments:

  1. As always, you make me pause and think. For me, hope propels me toward doing. As you remind, with hope all things are possible.

    Cathy

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    1. Thank you Cathy. It does propel us towards doing. A lovely way to say it.

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  2. My word, a few years ago when life turned upside down, was possible. I believe that hope resonates in that word and in our lives.

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    1. It does. It also resonates between and among people. Thanks for that reminder.

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  3. I'm hopeful that the words of Seamus Heaney will prevail and we will witness "justice rise up." I must hold to that belief; I can't go on w/out it.
    Mary Ann, your writing inspires me to be better, to write better. I am in awe of you.

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    1. Me too. It will be our doing that causes justice to rise up. The times now are too difficult for others to take care of it. We must all act.

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    2. Glenda, your writing inspires me too. Very mutual.

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    3. Thank you, Mary Ann. 'Preciate you.

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  5. "When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something."
    Dmitri Shostakovich

    "The only real laughter comes from despair."
    Groucho Marx, The Groucho Letters

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  6. Hope and history will rhyme again...but we have work to do now to help them bend to each other again, don't we?

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    1. We sure do. These times remind me that justice requires action.

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