Tag Archives: hope

We Shall Overcome

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The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. –                                                                                        from the Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/

Consciousness of right-doing brings its own reward; but not amid the smoke of battle is merit seen and appreciated by lookers-on… If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race. When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving. – Mary Baker Eddy

***

It sure appears sometimes that injustice, bigotry, hatred, and inequality are winning the battle, doesn’t it? We crave justice. We yearn for equity and fair play. But we don’t always seem to find those things in the here and now. We might be tempted to feel discouraged and frustrated about the state of our world. We might be tempted to lose hope. We might even be tempted to just give up. But… well, if we just give up – what’s the alternative? To STOP trying to do good? To choose to be  unkind? To choose to be dishonest? To deliberately and consciously choose to feel no joy? Those do not feel like healthy options to me.

The other day I decided to conduct a little experiment: I decided to make a bad day for myself.  I had no idea how to go about this, really. I figured that making a bad day for myself would probably start with a bad attitude, though, right? About half an hour into my experiment I made the mistake of calling my mom. Within a minute she had me cracking up.  So. Yeah.  So much for my little experiment.  After my inauspicious beginning, it didn’t get much worse, either. My experiment was a spectacular failure. I learned something from it, though. I learned that I’d have to work really hard to make a bad day for myself.  And I faced the fact that I’m simply too lazy to have much success with that kind of thing.

Call me a naïve idealist, but I believe that good overcomes evil. I believe Love overcomes hate. I believe that wisdom overcomes ignorance. I believe Truth overcomes dishonesty. Always.  I believe what Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error.”

I believe that we SHALL overcome someday.

We shall overcome,

 We shall overcome,

We shall overcome, someday.

 Oh, deep in my heart,

 I do believe.

 we shall overcome,  someday.

We’ll walk hand in hand,

We’ll walk hand in hand,

We’ll walk hand-in-hand, someday. – Zilphia Hart, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yId_ABmtw-w

We won’t forget Trayvon. He is important to us – the verdict this week doesn’t change the truth of  that. God bless his family.

  … Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by the selfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle James, when he said: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted  from the world.”… The wicked man is not the ruler of his upright neighbor. Let it be understood that success in error is defeat in Truth… – Mary Baker Eddy

Hope and an Expectancy of Good

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“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all…

– Emily Dickinson

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

. – Hebrews 11:1

***

I never really appreciated “hope” when I was younger. I thought it was kind of a weak thing, to tell you the truth – something born out of desperation and helplessness – a thing that people talked about when they were expecting the worst, but “hoping for the best.” But I’ve come to believe that there are actually two kinds of hope – there’s the kind I just mentioned, and there’s another kind – the kind of hope that expects good, expects the best, and is always open to see answers and solutions, beauty and love, and everything incredible in life – the kind of hope that makes its own “miracles.”

In her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy defines “MIRACLE” as “That which is divinely natural, but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science. “  Eddy writes, ““A miracle fulfills God’s law, but does not violate that law…” and she says, “Now, as then (in Jesus’ time), these mighty works (healings) are not supernatural, but supremely natural…We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence. Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary.”

The truly hope-filled person isn’t weak, desperate, or discouraged. The hope-filled person is, I think, a person who knows how to recognize all the good around her, and who can open herself up to it, and avail herself of it. The hope-filled person has made the discovery that things always get better, that it really is “darkest before the dawn” and that there is an answer to every problem. Hopeful people are open to the moment, are spontaneous, and joy-filled. The hope-filled person has learned she can trust in, and rely on, God (Good, Love, Truth) every single time. She doesn’t plea, she doesn’t beg, she knows.

For myself, I have found that when I consciously go through life with hope and an expectancy of good it brings a certain “magic” into my day.

My recent interest in photography has taught me a lot about having an “expectancy of good.”  If I go out with my camera, expecting to see magic in every moment, I find treasures all around me. There’s no way I can tell you exactly what I’m going to see on my walks – an expectancy of good doesn’t carry that kind of limitation with it, but is open to everything – I can’t stage the eagles, herons, and otters for myself – but I can know that there’ll be some treasure in every moment that will bring me joy.

There is power in confident hope. There is initiative, rather than inertia; patient waiting, rather than helpless waiting. There is an expectancy of good.

“Declare everything good for yourself; expect everything good now.” – Edward A. Kimball