Hope Underground

A Meditation on Hope, Roots, and Corpses

I’m being buried alive.

Maybe you haven’t said it like this, but you’ve felt it. You know what it’s like be minding your business and, before you know it you end up wandering into pits of hopelessness/despair/frustration where everything that could go wrong, keeps going wrong.

When dealing with your own stuff is too taxing, sometimes some background noise is the best way to drown out the thoughts that are drowning you. But as soon you do, you find yourself eavesdropping on Floridian conversations about slavery’s benefits FOR THE ENSLAVED!?

FAM!?

So you turn off the TV and start scrolling apps only to find German shepherds leaping to take a bite of Black Ohio truck drivers. (I’m speculating about the leaping. It seems like a reasonable one since the drivers hands were raised in surrender).

And you feel it, deeply. So you go back to try and deal with your own mess only realize things aren’t actually getting better, your problems are just playing musical chairs. The most difficult ones haven’t been solved, they’re just in a different seat. Different problems are front and center right now. The most difficult ones, you thought you solved, are dancing their way right back to you.

If you haven’t said it, now you’re probably saying it.

I’m being buried alive.

If that’s you, I hope a little word picture on roots, corpses and dirt helps you hold on to hope.

Hope: The Difference Between Roots & Corpses

Hope can be seen in the difference between roots and corpses. In other words, it’s possible to be full of heartache and full of hope.

Roots and Corpses both live in the same house. They share the same address, but that’s all they have in common.

Corpses are passive. They rot.

Roots are active. They drink.

Roots, although buried underground, have tapped into a source of life. Roots are LITERALLY buried alive. We bury the dead as a sign that their life on earth has ended. But roots don’t live, roots won’t live, unless they’re buried alive.

For roots, the act of being buried alive, is a new beginning not a tragic ending.

Four Affirmations: Two Negatives + Two Positives

Next time you feel buried alive under the weight of different tangible or ambiguous griefs, I want to you to remember these four things.

I AM NOT exempt from from daily trials or compounding grief. (Don’t be surprised when they come)

I AM being buried alive. (Don’t be surprised when they don’t let up)

I AM NOT a corpse. (This isn’t the end for you)

I AM a root system. (This could be the beginning of something special.

Peace.

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For more on Grief, Hope and Storytelling that bridges the gap between the two, you might enjoy my latest book We Go On: Finding Purpose in All of Life’s Sorrows and Joys.

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Day 11 of 30 Days of Hope