“without hope”
1 Chronicles 29:15
I’m thinking about Robin Williams today. Kinda hard not to. The news is offering details of what happened yesterday, although I’m not sure I want to know. And the kids and I were talking about his gifts to us. His hard work on movies has provided us with repeated entertainment, and good memories.
I don’t go to a lot of movies. Never have. And I don’t see movies just because a certain star is in them. So the list of Robin Williams movies that I haven’t seen is way longer than the list I have seen. Most of what I’ve seen of his work are comedies, I think, and I’m grateful for laughter, and the fun that I have with my kids any time we watch his Teddy Roosevelt character in the “Night at the Museum” movies.
But I’m also grateful for his more serious performances, like in “Dead Poets Society” and “Good Morning, Vietnam.” I like things that make me think, and that movie had some of that.
So I’m appreciating Robin Williams’ work, and I’m feeling sad for his family, but more than anything else, I’m thinking about hope. Or rather, about hopelessness. Oh, how I loathe that feeling.
I really don’t know anything about Mr Williams, and whatever battles he may have faced in his life. Oh, sure, I can read a few news reports, but there will still be a lot of info missing, and maybe some misinformation, too. Which leaves me not knowing much about him. But it seems to me that what leads to someone taking their own life, ultimately, is a lack of hope. And that just breaks my heart.
Emily Dickinson wrote a poem about hope, that I do not remember. But I know the first line: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” And while I never remember the rest of the poem, that line has stuck with me for years, because I think it’s so very true. Hope, like a bird, seems delicate and fragile to me. It can be lost, albeit temporarily, by so many circumstances; some big, some small. As I’ve gotten stronger in my faith, I find that I’m stronger ~ my hope is less easily lost, and more easily regained. But sometimes when I’m weak, without warning, I find my hope has flown.
I’m close to God. I rely on Him, and I love His Word. I know where to go to find my hope again, when it has flitted away from me. I ache for those whose hope is in something temporary, or for whom hope is hard to find. And I pray for those who cannot, or will not, pray for themselves.
Light Expectations 