This one’s a no-brainer, right?

“Hope,” I mean, as the Word Press Daily Prompt, and this blog, called Finding Hope Ness.

hope

How many times have I said I’m “surrounded by hope,” as in Hope Bay, the Hope Bay Nature Reserve, Hope Bay Forest, and Hope Ness itself? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. But, in case you’re a first-time reader, the answer is lots of times; too many, as if saying it often enough, taking advantage of the coincidence of location, makes it real.

There is nothing more precious and yet so hard to find than hope. And nothing more sentimentalized.

Why, just the other day, I took a photo of daffodils just beyond my front door and waxed oh-so poetic here about how they show us the way, inspire us to feel hopeful.

I know there are people in the world for whom that is true, who are that much in touch with the spirit in living things that it can lift them up, and with them, others. They are the blessed ones, the children among us, whether young or old, who have the power to bring real hope to a world desperately in need of it.

But empty words, however well-intentioned, or not, accomplish nothing.

Empty words do no good for a generation of young people in isolated, damaged First Nation communities who feel so hopeless they don’t want to live.

Empty words and token gestures – even by the twenty-five thousands – do relatively little to bring hope to the millions of people whose lives have been devastated by endless warfare, drought-induced starvation, and murderous/tortuous intolerance.

Empty words will not save the world from the unfolding global catastrophe of climate change. And yes, that now includes the Fort McMurray, wildfire disaster this week.

Empty words and outright lies in the service of unconscionable demagoguery may lead to the White House; they may serve the evil will to power.

But they do not bring real hope to the world; quite the contrary: they are the worst form of hopeless, because they wear the mask of hope while hiding the truth.