Practice Optimism

Feed Hope

“The spiritual task of life is to feed hope. Hope is not something to be found outside of us. It lies in the spiritual life we create within. The whole purpose of wrestling with life is to be transformed into the self we are meant to become, to step out of the confines of our false securities to allow our creating God to go on creating. In us.”

Sister Joan D. Chittister

          Our task as spiritual beings is to feed hope, especially right now when we are watching the world battle a pandemic, while business everywhere grinds to a halt. If you watch or listen to the 24/7 news cycle, you won’t find much food for this mission—it’s a grim business. But then it’s not the job of the news cycle to prop us up. Hope, like joy and confidence, is an inside job. No one can give it to us. Hope springs up inside the human heart, or it doesn’t exist at all. Like many other life decisions, we choose optimism, or we chose pessimism. Right now, as always, optimism is the best choice we can make for our own health and for the good of our fellow human beings.

          One of the ways of maintaining hope in the face of crisis is to visualize a light—could be a candle flame, a light bulb, a small campfire, or just a brilliant glow—inside yourself. I locate mine at my mid-section, but it can be higher or lower on your body. Visualize a shining light that becomes brighter and expands outward as you watch. When you reach an intensity that feels right, hold it there for a few minutes. You can come back to this inner light any time during the day or night that you realize you’re becoming afraid or losing hope. Just remember your light and bring your attention back to it. Stoke it a little bit and get it back to a comforting level.

          Sister Joan Chittister says, “There is no darkness that can extinguish the inner light. The important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us [including the people around us]. The task is to control the environment within us.” We cannot control the spread of this virus except by doing what we’ve been asked to do—stay at home and six feet from other people when you must go out. We can however do that, and we can do our best to stoke the flame of hope within ourselves and others. Hang in there, my friends—and wash your hands. We’ve got this.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane