Whispering Hope

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Whispering Hope

How noisy the world is.  If not the rumble of explosives or the crack of guns, it’s the yelling of the TV announcer and the snarling of the rap star.

There is little place left for a soft whisper, for a gentle suggestion, for a lucid thought.

How flimsy seem the remaining tattered threads of Nature.

How futile is the soft light of Wisdom. 

There is no place for the soft and delicate and gentle.  There is no welcome for that which longs to heal and nourish the soul, and anything slow and gradual is doomed to derision, drowned out by laughter. 

There is a terrible noise loosed in the world today, a noisome cabal of shallow connections, a raucous cacophony of demanding and consuming and doing and going, he who speaks loudest winning the debate, she who spends most earning approval, and the clanging rattle of first world bucket-lists obscures the cries of those
who just want some safe drinking water in a bucket, if they could afford a bucket.

Everyone keeps busy to avoid looking into the Void within, any slowing, any deep looking, risks awareness of the emptiness.  A prolonged glance at one’s life might reveal how momentary, giggling happiness has usurped lasting, meaningful joy. 

There is a terrible noise loosed in the world today, the grinding noise of a great machine, the economic machine of consuming possessions, draining busyness, plundering profits, and relentless entertainment. 

There is a terrible darkness loosed in the world today, the darkness of shadows cast by the material, the dark shadows of lack of soul and spirit and connection and heart. 

The economic systems and political mechanisms that saved the “developed” world from physical hunger and material want have turned on us and begun to devour our planet and our souls. 

There is no hope, no worldly hope, as there was no hope when Attila marched, no hope when plague spread, no hope when famine deepened. 

There is only Hope, the same Hope of the ages born out of darkest persecutions, the timeless Hope that rises from bloodiest crucifixions.  It is Hope individual, not corporate and not societal, Hope ineffable yet eloquent, a Christmas Hope furtively slipping out through the gaps between the crushing weight of sales and trinkets.

It is the Hope of human spirit born of One Spirit, that whispering voice unheard in the modern madness, yet now and forever still unsilenced. 

There is a terrible noise loosed in the world today, but whether through perennial decay or spectacular collapse, for each of us it will someday be rendered mute.  Whispering through the wreckage of each of our lives, waiting for us to crawl out from under all that we once took so seriously, that enduring Spirit of Hope will be patiently waiting. 

Copyright 2016 Don Ray