serving sincerity with a generous sprinkle of hope

exploring what we've perceived as a way of being and belonging

I imagine a day when we can gather round a table and break bread together.  Where we can turn to one another, faces flush with joy, and experience a deeply seated sense of belonging.  As I am, this feeling of belonging is rather fleeting. It feels as though the world has run amuck and there is no solution or salve within reach. 

An integral aspect of Ayurveda is when dis-ease or dysfunction is present, the way to restore health is to find the root of the problem. No quick fix, but instead to investigate where the system became flawed and begin to work back from there. When I think about the current climate of political affairs I find myself wondering where did we go wrong? The problem didn’t happen overnight, nor will it be solved in a day.  Ayurveda believes the dis-ease is an accumulation of ama or toxins that then take over the healthy functioning systems.  Sometimes the disease is manifested from the beginning and as time goes on it gains strength eventually leading to the demise.  I am reminded of the saying by Mark Twain

“... history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes.”

The cliched notion that we have experienced havoc and heartbreak before but never as we are now.  The way grief and despair fill the void of what used to be drunk with happiness and elated togetherness.  This is not new and this is not forever. But this is quite frankly the reality of the present tense.  

As I was nearing the end of the book Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett, there was a dialogue between her and Brene Brown on the topic of hope. 

“Hope is a function of struggle,'' says C.R. Snyder. Brene Brown then elaborates “hope is not an emotion but hope is a cognitive-behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity when we have relationships that are trustworthy when people have faith in our ability to get out of a jam.”  Hope is what happens when there is struggle that is matched with a reckoning for healing.  A point in time for one to show the weakened state of being in order to restructure what is no longer working.  For this to happen, there has to be failure in a supported environment. 

Krista Tippett goes on to talk about the patterning we see in parenting. When in an attempt to alleviate the pain experienced by telling the child everything is wonderful, parents often rob the cognitive development of hope. It’s in this sheltering when we lose sight of the moment of opportunity for beauty to transpire and the moments that make us unfold as they should. 

The artist Cézanne plays with perspective when he flattened the surfaces to show the same arrangement from multiple angles at once. He does this by emphasizing each individual object rather than the scene as a whole, creating eye-catching, off-kilter compositions.  Instilling a feeling of entropy.  I liken this to when we get lost in the minutia of the moment rather than being able to engage with the full-frame. Applied in this conversation, how does the sum of the parts impact the whole?  Where or when have you lost sight of the bigger picture for the finer details? How have the small points impacted your interpretation of the grander scheme of things?

Referencing the above photo, Cézanne shares

“I was pleased with myself when I discovered that sunlight could not be reproduced,” he explained, according to Renoir. His Life and Work. “It had to be represented by something else…by color.”

When we think about hope in regard to light it’s easy to imagine it in a single tone, but to represent hope, we have to allow for a varying degree of solutions, a variety of colors to represent the hope or light.  The colors here are the outcomes or variables that are impossible to remove.  Hope is a dependent variable from the way we portray the experience of struggle.  Moments of struggle, are essential to making meaning, and wherein lies the beauty and the framework for health. Where have you experienced a struggle that eludes hope?

Hope is not necessarily the cure or even a solution. Hope infuses a situation with compassion and generosity. It is founded on trusting that the clouds will part. I encourage you to think of it as a way through instead of a way out. I invite you to imagine yourself in the moments of darkness as a seed buried in the soil. Germination happens here and is crucial for growth.

In an interview on the On Being podcast, Nikki Giovanni says,

“We’re going to Mars because whatever is wrong with us 

will not get right with us

 so we  journey forth  

carrying the same baggage

 but every now and then leaving 

 one little bitty thing behind:”

I invite you to read this poem by Amanda Gorman a youth poet Laureate who shook the nation with this poem on Inauguration day.

The hill we climb

When day comes we ask ourselves,

where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry,

a sea we must wade.

We've braved the belly of the beast,

We've learned that quiet isn't always peace,

and the norms and notions

of what just is

isn't always just-ice.

And yet the dawn is ours

before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we've weathered and witnessed

a nation that isn't broken,

but simply unfinished.

We the successors of a country and a time

where a skinny Black girl

descended from slaves and raised by a single mother

can dream of becoming president

only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes we are far from polished.

Far from pristine.

But that doesn't mean we are

striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge a union with purpose,

to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

conditions of man.

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,

but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,

we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms

so we can reach out our arms

to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true,

that even as we grieved, we grew,

that even as we hurt, we hoped,

that even as we tired, we tried,

that we'll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat,

but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision

that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree

and no one shall make them afraid.

If we're to live up to our own time,

then victory won't lie in the blade.

But in all the bridges we've made,

that is the promise to glade,

the hill we climb.

If only we dare.

It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

it's the past we step into

and how we repair it.

We've seen a force that would shatter our nation

rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth,

in this faith we trust.

For while we have our eyes on the future,

history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption

we feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs

of such a terrifying hour

but within it we found the power

to author a new chapter.

To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked,

how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

Now we assert,

How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was,

but move to what shall be.

A country that is bruised but whole,

benevolent but bold,

fierce and free.

We will not be turned around

or interrupted by intimidation,

because we know our inaction and inertia

will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain,

If we merge mercy with might,

and might with right,

then love becomes our legacy,

and change our children's birthright.

So let us leave behind a country

better than the one we were left with.

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,

we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west.

We will rise from the windswept northeast,

where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.

We will rise from the sunbaked south.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid,

the new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it.

If only we're brave enough to be it.

Below, Cézanne painted several versions of the subject throughout his career and spent seven years working on the most famous representation here, which was left unfinished at the time of his death in 1906. At first glance, it appears as though it could be finished. Expressionless faces and bare bums are all evidence that there are details still to be done. Here’s a free pass to leave something near-complete or undone. There’s beauty in the progress but only if you stop to breathe.

I’ll leave ya with this wondering thought. When have you experienced a feeling of being a work in progress?