Kill the Hope

Dr. Ron Rolheiser, a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, observed that, "Hope, as a virtue, should never be confused with simple optimism, an upbeat atmosphere, or with the capacity to laugh when things are bad. Neither is it a gritty stoicism or wishful thinking. What is it?

To hope is to be nurtured and sustained by a great belief, by a great ideal that is based upon a promise made by a power beyond our own - God. To hope is to live in the belief that, appearances notwithstanding, ultimately God will give us a world within which the lion and lamb will lie down together, where love and peace will triumph, and wherein all tears will be valued and wiped away.

To hope is to let such a great ideal empower us so as to sacrifice private ego, private comfort, private embrace, and even life itself, if necessary, for some great future, communal embrace. Post-modern nihilism is helping kill such hope."

Good. I'm committed to destroying this hope that's sold by the cartel of illusion, by hope dealers who prey on the tears of our world. Hope is a dangerous notion that surreptitiously destroys us. There's a reason it was left in the jar. Isn't it obvious to anyone else? Attributes of god are denials of humans.

Kill the hope.