Hope is the art of trusting...

My sense of reality emerged like a whisper, it was as if I had peered into a lit window from a darkened landscape and saw my own truth, bright, shining and clear. Once I saw it I could not ignore it, pretend I had not seen it, every cell in my body knew its shape and even when I step back into a place absent of that light I still know what it feels like. I can see it without my eyes. I can see it with my very being, I can feel it with my heart. So I thought of how that feeling manifests itself in my physical being and I can only describe it as the feeling you get when you really love someone, how it hurts in your chest when you think of them harmed, or when you look deeply, quietly into your child's eyes...there is a sensation of pulling out from the center, a deep tugging, a palpable pain. I truly believe there is so much more than words can describe, so much more than our minds can comprehend, that is being the faith.

I read these words in 2007 and have meditated on them through this long journey to now. I see it as a way to express my life, my art of living, the art of moving my body through space.

"Prudence is the art of seeing clearly,
Temperance is the art of holding balance,
Fortitude is the art of courageous continuing,
Justice is the art of forgiving,
Humility is the art of honest self-appraisal,
Faith is the art of believing in things unseen,
Hope is the art of trusting,
Charity is the art of loving the enemy."

I think I found these words on the back of a book about St. Benedict written by..?? I have to ask my girlfriend, they aren't my words, I did amend the art of hope, instead of the art of waiting, I think it is the art of trusting....that is what I think I do now, trust, hope and believe in things unseen more than I ever did before, more than I could ever feel before. Seeing it in my heart and knowing it is hard to describe, it is like trying to write in words how it sounds when snow falls on a quiet, evening landscape.