October 28: Believe in Something, Hope, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Forest Reverie"

In fact, he still had many doubts, but pushed onward with the conviction that sooner or later there would be some kind of payoff, some sense that goodness, in and of itself, was its own reward; that events, even cruel ones, happened for reasons that, in one way or another, wold benefit the community of man.  Ives winced at some of the stories he heard, for underlying every tragedy was the question:  Why?  Yet he had to believe in something, otherwise he would have died, he loved his son so much.

This is Ives attending support-group meetings for victims of crimes and their families.  Like most of the people present, Ives has been struggling with the "why."  But he never loses hope.  He believes that there is going to be a reward.  A kind of goodness begets goodness thing.  It's that idea that keeps Ives going.  Without that belief, for Ives, the world is a cold and meaningless place.

I have hope.  Yes, every day seems like a series of worries and tragedies averted right now.  I get new tires for my car, and its brakes start grinding.  That's pretty much the way my life goes.  Currently, I'm rationing trips in my car until Friday, when I get paid.  I can't even think about my daughter's birthday or Christmas.

Yet, like Ives, I have to believe in something, or else I don't think I would have the energy to get out of bed in the morning.  I choose hope.  My car will get fixed, somehow.  My daughter will have birthday presents, and Santa Claus will be paying our house a visit on Christmas Eve.  All these things will happen, because I have hope.

I don't believe the world is cold and meaningless.  That would be like surrendering to doubt and fear.  Goodness is not random.  I have been the recipient of too many unexpected blessings to not believe in God's grace.  I know that I've said all this before, but it bears repeating.  Grace is not random.  Everything (good and bad) has meaning.  I think that we, as human beings, simply lack the vision to see that meaning sometimes.

The last few months have been pretty trying for me.  There's been death and financial struggle and job insecurity.  Like the speaker in Edgar Allan Poe's "Forest Reverie," however, I need to look past the wreckage and try to focus on seeds taking root.  Petals opening.  Something new being born, full of life and hope.

That is what keeps Saint Marty going.

The Forest Reverie

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!

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