Hope Lives On in the Stream of Consciousness

June 2, 2018 by JoAnna 39 Comments

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt is, “your favorite word.”

Just one? Then it would have to be hope. But I also like petrichor (the scent of rain on the earth), evergreen, moon, nooma ( wind/spirit/breath), stardust….. But hope is my favorite.

Hope gets us to keep going when we want to give up. If you have trouble finding faith, look for hope. Hope can lead you to faith, or at least hope can help us believe in the possibility that things are going to work out.

As we – as I get older, I think of all the times that I didn’t know how I would get through something – giving up my dog when I was 11, my boyfriend moving when I was 16, the divorce, the rebound from hell, my teenage daughter’s meltdowns, the deaths of family members. But as time passed, and I saw that I did get through all those things, I came to believe that I could get through just about anything life could throw at me. Of course there may be gnashing of teeth, wailing, whining, fist shaking, despair…. But hope grows with each challenging life event, especially when things turn out better than I could have imagined.

Can I apply this personal hope to hope for our world? That’s a little harder. Sometimes I do feel despair at the current political and environmental climate. I wonder how we humans can be so enlightened and full of goodness at times and be so violent and ignorant at others. But I cannot live without hope. Well, I suppose I could live. But I don’t want to live without hope. Hope is something I can have. We can nurture hope in ourselves.

Hope floats above the garbage and turns it into compost. Hope makes us try again tomorrow, or next week. Hope could be contagious. Wouldn’t that be something to hope for?

For more favorite words in the Stream of Consciousness, visit Linda Hill at

https://lindaghill.com/2018/06/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-2-18/

Here are Stream of Consciousness Rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

(The hopeful seedling photo is from Pixabay)