To what is hope?
Breathe in... Breathe out.
Where did we learn to do that? We breathe because we have found that not doing so leads to discomfort, and ultimately, to death. Breathing slows our approach to the end. With breath we find a renewal in the only thing we will ever truly know this side of heaven; life.
All we know is life. Our curious human nature wonders about death, because it is neither something we can control, or completely understand. All we can objectively know about death, is that it is the end of life; but only life as we've ever understood it. Breathing then, is a form of hope. The idea of death is a reminder, not only of life, but hope. And what is the answer? For what do we hope?
Since we are all called to a common end (death), it seems to follow that the human experience is one that is shared. Life, and all that entails, is the one thing that we all share. And essentially, death is something that we can all hope for. Because Life is a means to an end. It is our common and universal opportunity to decide for ourselves what we are living for. But since we can't objectively know that there is an afterlife, since those that have experienced death are no longer living how do we direct our existence?
We hope.
Hope is not blind, as it appears. It is driven by the very reality of our existence. Is it optimism, that draws the next breath? Or is it a reality that before we can breathe, we are sustained; that the moment we lack that sustainment we do not *learn* to breathe... we simply breathe. Breathing in the hope of the next breath, until the day that the heart stops. Before we could breathe, did we doubt that someday we would breathe? Now that we live, we have a higher state of mind that compels us to wonder what's next.
Death is not something we can stop... just like being born is not something that we do for ourselves.
4 comments:
Hey friend! I noticed some statements that didn't quite make sense to me.
First of all, you said that breathing was a form of hope, which is the same thing as saying breathing is hope. I'm not sure you can say that. I think breathing is a great metaphor for hope, but not hope itself. Why? Because Hope is a virtue from God and, therefore, cannot be built into our nature. If it were, every person would have Hope. Since Hope goes hand-in-hand with Faith (read Spe Salvi for this explanation), and also causes us to believe in Heaven and look forward to it, everyone would believe in God and Hope to get to Heaven some day.
So, though I wouldn't say that breathing is hope, I would say that hope helps us keep breathing. If we know through Faith that there is a God, we will also know through Hope that we can someday get to Heaven, where we will be happy with God forever, no matter how bad this life is.
Another statement that didn't quite make sense to me was, "death is something we can all hope for." How can you hope for death? In one sense, yes, because death leads to life with God (assuming we are not in mortal sin and have chosen to live with God forever) but in another sense, whether you're hoping to reach heaven or not, no one hopes for death. If you're hoping to reach heaven, you don't want to stop at death, but go beyond to Heaven. And if you don't believe in Heaven, you dread death every day of your life because it means... well, death. Nothingness and darkness and uncertainty. Or, perhaps hell. Yuck!
Out of curiosity, are you trying to prove the existence of God by trying to say that His existence is self-evident in creation to everyone? For instance, through breathing? If you can say that breathing is hope, and hope is a theological virtue, then you can say that everyone has hope and therefore, hopes for Heaven, and will go from hope to belief in God, and from there to changing their whole lives, and from there to salvation! Just wondering.
Hope all is well!
How was the swearing in?
I'm not quite sure what made me think of this, or what it proves, but what do you do when you're watching a scary movie and you hope something bad isn't going to happen? You hold your breath. So maybe if you didn't have hope, you wouldn't breathe? Ok...I shouldn't even try to be philosophical right now. My apologies. :)
Hope is the virtue by which we believe that God will give us eternal life and the means to obtain it. Hmmmm...Also an act of hope is neccessary when a person comes to a knowledge of God's existence and his own destiny, namely, eternal happiness in heaven. Any of this a-ringin' a bell? :)
Breathing is simply part of our make up- an unconsious act really. (part of God's marvelous design of us...) Hope on the other hand requires concious thought, and really an act of the will.
God bless you honey!
Due to the speculative nature of this post, I will only do so much explaining. I wrote this as I was sitting in a protestant service a few months ago, in it's unedited form. So, they are raw thoughts, and I appreciate the feedback.
Firstly, I think that it would have been more accurate for me to say that breathing is a manifestation of hope. Whether it is subconscious or not, where there is breath, there is a will to live. However faint, the want for life is what keeps us breathing. Where there is want, there is desire; and where there is desire, there is bound to be hope. Even if it is a superficial hope.
So, when we breathe, it's subconscious, but there is hope. I think that if there is a point to had from these wanderings, it is that hope is hard to kill. Because even in a seemingly hopeless situation, your heart still beats, and you still draw breath. If nothing else, it may be helpful to realize what a gift that is during those times.
"Hoping for death" was a play on words. We can all hope for death, because it's not something we can help. It's going to happen. I know that's kind of morbid, but it's true. It's not true that no one hopes for death, unless you are talking about death after death (hell). Whether or not you believe in hell, no one wants to go there. There were a great many saints that saw this life as something that they *hoped* would pass quickly so that they could finally spend eternity with the Lover of their Soul.
And I don't think that I was trying to prove the existence of God with all this, but the when you really think about respiration, or any other function of the human body, it's hard not to recognize the brilliance of it. Which in turn makes it hard to believe that the human biology was something that came about by accident.
Anyway, I wrote all this in a comment a while ago, and it never got posted for some reason. So sorry it took so long to respond.
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