Incorrigible Hope

Two weeks ago, Keith received an email from his mentor and dissertation advisor at Baylor.  A lead on a potential teaching job.  A real lead, a really good lead.  The best one he's had all year.  Plus the first to come along since he graduated, so that his resume says Ph.D. instead of "ABD" (meaning he has completed "all but dissertation").  A small school with a Baptist background.  Baylor alums on the faculty.  Keith's advisor wrote him a very kind introduction.  Keith applied for the position the next day, and the battle began.  The battle with hope.

You can see it immediately.  The extra spring in our step, the extra glint in our eye.  Then the constant moderation of expectations.  The holding back.  The holding on.  We share a glance.  What if?  What could be?  Then we find ourselves shaking our heads.  Don't get too excited, now.  We don't know yet.  Anything could happen.  And that's just the point, isn't it?  Anything could happen.  Anything wonderful.  Anything beautiful.  Anything disappointing.  This is the danger, the necessity, of hope.  Incorrigible hope.

Hope is such a tricky, slippery thing, you see.  Without it life is static, colorless, tired.  Without it, there's not much in this life worth doing, worth dreaming.  Without hope, we lose.  We die.  Too much hope though, can be too risky.  Hope can be blinding.  We can ride hope too high, and if it suddenly slips from beneath us, well, it hurts when we fall.  So we protect ourselves.  We ground ourselves.  We make sure to pop our own little bubbles before they have a chance to carry us too far away.  Before someone else has a chance to pop them for us.  Because we're so sensible.  And we're so safe.  And we're so tragic.

We don't always realize what we're trading, do we, for that safety?  For that sense?  Is it naive, or is it essential, to let ourselves hope.  To swell with it.  To burst with it.  How do we know we'll come crashing back down?  Maybe we won't.  Our hope might just carry us on to something better.  Some new, higher, solid ground.  What if it doesn't even matter?  Whether we land or whether we fall?  What if it's all the same and only the rising means anything?  Always rising.  Rising up, rising beyond, rising over.  And one more time, rising again.

Anything could happen?  Could we rise so high that we can't even see the ground anymore?  We could rise so high that we can't even reach the ground anymore.  So high that the ground is gone, just disappears, and there's nothing left to bruise us when we fall.  What's the difference between falling and floating?  Between floating and flying?

I don't know if I'm brave enough to find out yet.  I still feel that reflexive tug, that guard-against, when hope pulls at me.  I'm still moderating expectations.  I'm trying not to rise too high.  But Keith has a phone interview on Friday morning.  And anything could happen.