Hope, Life, and Love

Words, a central theme in my life, are sadly insufficient. Like paint on a canvas, they cannot ever fully capture the world they seek to represent. They are symbols that point our mind on to the Truth that stands behind them. Because of this, words are messy and sloppy. Meanings spill over from one word to another tainting this idea or that thing. They are loaded with emotions that obscure the object, but they remain, however feeble, our main source of communication.

But not the only. There are subtle contextual clues, a wink, a hesitation, a nod. Then there is soul communication; when spirit connects with spirit and pure knowledge and truth and emotion are exchanged. I have had that experience in my life; not nearly so often as I would like.

This brings me to my themes: faith, hope, love, charity, life. I do not believe I can truly discriminate among these to the extent that I can say where one ends and where another beings. How does faith differ from hope. In my mind's eye I see a non-Euclidean plane of hypergeometric, interlocking Venn diagrams. Words, in a instance such as this, can obfuscate the truth. How distinct, really, are faith, hope, and charity. In my experience they are so intertwined that I can scarcely disentangle my thoughts.

Hope is the first and the last of the virtues. It is the foundation for faith and its most powerful result. Hope and faith do not begin with doubt, but with a question. There is a subtle difference. The sincere seeker is ready to believe, but is not a naive dupe ready to believe anything. He does not doubt, but rather hopes and believes. Once faith is acquired, the seeker finds peace, love, charity, hope, and mercy are abundant in him. The abundant life the New Testament speaks of. The Book of Mormon often contrasts prosperity and being cut off from God. It is interesting that it is not prosperity and recession! It is prosperity, which comes from the Latin Spero, meaning "to hope", that is the reward of faithfulness. Faithfulness, in turn, combines hope, necessary to endure, faith, the knowledge about ones outcome, and diligence, which comes from the Latin for "to love."

Somewhere in all this concatenation of words is some truth. I find myself, sometimes, throwing all the words I can at an idea until a few stick. Hope brings us to faith and secures us with an anchor of love to persevere the trials of this life. The reward of our diligence is the hope to know that there is a place for us on the right hand of God.

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

Ether 12:4 ~The Book of Mormon