I have come to a strange conclusion. Without melancholy, it seems as though real hope doesn’t exist. Without melancholy, real hope is often false hope. What do I mean by this? When we were younger, most of us were full of hope. We said silly things like, once I get a license and a car, life will be so much better. Or, once I get a girlfriend, life will be perfect. Now, looking back, we realize that all those things we hoped for were just false hope.
But more than that, we learn a certain melancholy truth about life, the truth that most things we put our hope in in this world won’t ever satisfy. I call this the melancholy of hope. It reminds me of one of the quotes on the front page of this blog. “Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the bottom of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts?” Henri Frederic Amiel.
It is my belief that real hope springs from melancholy, forged in the realization that life is short, and the things our hearts often want to find hope in are hallow. Real hope is something difficult to come by. The simple truth is that there just isn’t much in this world worth hoping in. And melancholy is the only thing that will allow a person to shatter the false hopes that abound around us. Without it, we have no means of seeing ourselves for what we really are. Without the aid of melancholy, we can only deceive ourselves with false hopes of happiness and prosperity. The average person thinks that his hopes are something good. Let him test his hopes to see if they are any better than those we entertained as children.
But let us discuss real hope for the moment. What then is worthwhile for a person to hope in. In my mind, only things that are eternal are worth hoping it. It is my belief that each human soul will last forever, that our relationships will stand the test of time, and in the hereafter, they will flourish. Taking time to encourage one another, to build lasting, healthy relationships, that is something worth hoping in, something that will satisfy. And growing closer to the Lord is something worth hoping in – finding out who this God is who has made each one of us, watching over us, giving us His word and His Son to redeem us. That is something worth hoping in.
