Thanks for an excellent piece, Billie. Especially this: "Faith looks at a world falling apart and refuses to accept that world, not out of delusion (in some way faith is more clear eyed and sober than anything) but out of a rejection of the world that despair builds."
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We need hope. We need faith. We need to believe that in the future things can and will get better. I would never be one to try to counter that argument.
Hope is future oriented as it should be. Here are some of the wonderful things that hope can bring.
* Hope looks to the future with belief in better outcomes. ✨
* It's about having goals and the will to reach them. 🚀
* Hope isn't just wishing; it's actively moving towards a desired future. 💪
* It fuels motivation and action for a brighter tomorrow. ☀️
Hope is strategic. Hope builds faith. Hope builds trust. Hope is a positive thing to ascertain in our lives.
But hope is not enough!
Hope is a strategy but not a tactic.
It's been said that faith without works is dead. It can also be said that hope without action is just wishing.
We all have this saying let's plan for the worst and hope for the best. What planning are you doing? Do you even have a plan?
I think hope can make us complacent. As we watch what's happening around the country we hope things work out for everyone. But they're not. Right now they're not working out for a lot of people in our country at this very moment.
While I hope they have hope I also hope they have tactics. What are you going to do when they come for you bad boys bad boys? That's the question we all need to answer. Now if you don't really think they're coming for you but for other folks and that bothers you then I think that's a good thing to protest.
But there's a lot of people that know they're coming for them. There's no more guesswork there's no more wondering what they're going to do there's no more wondering about what depths of cruelty this regime is capable of.
If you're outside the mainstream of anything in this country I think you should be concerned that you're on the list.
Many people here know they're on the list. Tactics.
Tactics are getting involved. Tactics are letting your voice be heard. Tactics are letting those you know and care about understand what's happening. Tactics is fighting for your rights in whatever fashion you're capable of doing. Tactics is not giving up.
Honestly I'm not sure hope or tactics are going to save some of us. It's just now starting to hit home for a lot of people. Perhaps enough critical mass will develop amongst the population that we will fill the streets with unhappy Americans. We can bring this regime to its knees if we have the hope if we have the tactics and if we really believe that our very existence is on the line as a free people.
Hi from a little south of you, in Columbia. I like this very much, and not only for the Tolkien references. I hope faith will be a basis for hope, in that individials holding faith regardless of cost means that we're holding faith together. And where two are gathered...
While we're trading quotes:
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
By Adam Zagajewski
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
G.K.Chesterton, in "The Ballad of the White Horse",
put these words in the mouth of the Virgin Mary
as she addressed King Arthur:
"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/white-horse2.html
C.S. Lewis, in 'Notes on the Way', The Spectator, 9th Nov. 1946,
commented on this poem:
Does not the central theme - the highly paradoxical message which
Alfred receives from the Virgin - embody the feeling, and the only
possible feeling, with which in any age, almost-defeated men
take up such arms as are left them and win? . . . Hence,
in those quaking days just after the fall of France, a young friend
of mine (just about to enter the R.A.F.) and I found ourselves
quoting to one another stanza after stanza of the Ballad.
There was nothing else to say.
Thanks for an excellent piece, Billie. Especially this: "Faith looks at a world falling apart and refuses to accept that world, not out of delusion (in some way faith is more clear eyed and sober than anything) but out of a rejection of the world that despair builds."
Hope is not enough!
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We need hope. We need faith. We need to believe that in the future things can and will get better. I would never be one to try to counter that argument.
Hope is future oriented as it should be. Here are some of the wonderful things that hope can bring.
* Hope looks to the future with belief in better outcomes. ✨
* It's about having goals and the will to reach them. 🚀
* Hope isn't just wishing; it's actively moving towards a desired future. 💪
* It fuels motivation and action for a brighter tomorrow. ☀️
Hope is strategic. Hope builds faith. Hope builds trust. Hope is a positive thing to ascertain in our lives.
But hope is not enough!
Hope is a strategy but not a tactic.
It's been said that faith without works is dead. It can also be said that hope without action is just wishing.
We all have this saying let's plan for the worst and hope for the best. What planning are you doing? Do you even have a plan?
I think hope can make us complacent. As we watch what's happening around the country we hope things work out for everyone. But they're not. Right now they're not working out for a lot of people in our country at this very moment.
While I hope they have hope I also hope they have tactics. What are you going to do when they come for you bad boys bad boys? That's the question we all need to answer. Now if you don't really think they're coming for you but for other folks and that bothers you then I think that's a good thing to protest.
But there's a lot of people that know they're coming for them. There's no more guesswork there's no more wondering what they're going to do there's no more wondering about what depths of cruelty this regime is capable of.
If you're outside the mainstream of anything in this country I think you should be concerned that you're on the list.
Many people here know they're on the list. Tactics.
Tactics are getting involved. Tactics are letting your voice be heard. Tactics are letting those you know and care about understand what's happening. Tactics is fighting for your rights in whatever fashion you're capable of doing. Tactics is not giving up.
Honestly I'm not sure hope or tactics are going to save some of us. It's just now starting to hit home for a lot of people. Perhaps enough critical mass will develop amongst the population that we will fill the streets with unhappy Americans. We can bring this regime to its knees if we have the hope if we have the tactics and if we really believe that our very existence is on the line as a free people.
I hope it works out for all of us
Stay safe
This was exactly what I needed to hear today 🙏❤️
I am so glad!
Hi from a little south of you, in Columbia. I like this very much, and not only for the Tolkien references. I hope faith will be a basis for hope, in that individials holding faith regardless of cost means that we're holding faith together. And where two are gathered...
While we're trading quotes:
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
By Adam Zagajewski
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.