
Hope Deferred
makes the heart sick
So goes the proverb. Its not a hope dashed but one set back that the wise man is talking about. Its reverse is the game being played against Nazanin Ratcliffe by the cruel Iranian regime. As obscene as this torture is, the end game is obvious: they mean to break her heart; her spirit; her will; presumably to get a confession from her that she actually is a spy. Take someone’s hope away and you have nothing left to bargain with but let them touch it then place it beyond their reach and you have the weapons of hope, fear and despair in abundance.
I’ve advertised a flat share and over the last week I’ve had people arrange to view yet none of them has turned up and only one has made any kind of excuse yet none have responded to a follow up enquiry. I could do a Margaret Hodge and say I know how Nazanin feels which is obviously ridiculous in the extreme (just like the dame). But the repeated disappointment grinds you down and zaps your mental strength, even if only to a small degree. And when other events conspire to deflate you and the past has taught you that dreams are for other people it just makes your day that little bit more difficult to get through.
I’ve developed a coping mechanism for life’s disappointments (and we all have them - so I’m not fishing for sympathy) and that is to write something poetic , philosophical or religious that doesn’t focus so much on the details of my situation as the general sense of being that springs from it. If you are a regular Facebook follower you will be familiar with the “Don’t let the buggers get you down” memes and cries of “Life is unfair” to which I’m largely immune. But if you notice my poetry written directly to Facebook I can tell you that I’ve been looking inward and need to express myself. Its quite cathartic and strangely hopeful.
The other morning I was feeling kind of out of myself, like life was travelling along a timeline but I was merely a passenger in the back seat. My thoughts turned to those of uncertainty and how we need signposts and landmarks to overcome our sense of homelessness as we sojourn through this life. But through what I composed in my head I touched on the only true path to finding ourselves and that is through community.
Personal salvation is a heresy that more often gives comfort to those who would be better advised to either deal with their issues or face the consequences. Grace is an invitation to find your quest among those for whom personal salvation sounds like a cruel joke. You will only find redemption through the salvation of others because that is the way to God’s heart.
Eight years ago I was on a journey to nowhere and nowhere was my destination of choice. Like the homeless person who finds no comfort in having a roof over his head, nowehere was home and the journey was my respite. You can’t be disappointed in where you are if it isn’t fixed. It was in this situation that I discovered the wonder of rain. As I was walking along the Lancaster Canal (in Lancaster) it started to rain and it was like the sky was hugging me. We tend not to feel the air and have no sense of wading through this sparse medium but when it rains you connect with the sky.
The sky seems far away
as if a dome
from which the clouds are hung;
A colander through which
the heavens shine
and showers fall.Then as we gaze it holds our wonder,
fuels our dreams;
our tiny lives
held captive in the seeming
endlessness of space.But when you give permission
for the rain to touch you
with its cool embrace
the sky feels near,
the clouds no longer there - but here.
While Nazanin suffers the searing pain of knowing that her loved ones are separated by paper thin walls of malice and her emotions are cruelly toyed with, offering false summits, I imagine her hopes are modest and inexpensive. And that is where we connect. I cannot empathise with the torment she is enduring but I can identify with her hopes that do not lie in things or places but with certain people and human connections.
Its heartless and despicable to compare our trifling concerns with the victims of Iran’s inhumane and utterly corrupt justice system but we owe them more than pity by which we can only reach down and offer condolences. Much better that we understand and share the emotions we may only know in part yet understand and feel in our own way. In that connection we can cry real tears and, together, share the burden. Finally I’ll share a poem I wrote 8 years ago:
With willing flesh
And heart replete
A thousand miles these feet
Would walk in searing heatThese heavy eyes
Would gladly gaze
Upon the sun's relentless
incandescent raysBut heroes faint
For lack of hope
When lesser mortals less prepared
Would somehow copeThe flesh finds strength
From scraps and spills
And breaks out of its boundaries
When the spirit willsBut flesh's
anaerobic burst
Will face the hearts inertia
When it fears the worstThe spirit hides
Behind the skirts
Of fixed primordial paradigms
And ancient hurtsThe heart made strong
With longings stirred
grows weak with dreams betrayed
And hopes deferred