Tammy Letherer 
I consider myself the hopeful sort. When I was a teenager, I wrote the words of Emily Dickinson in my notebook:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
I like to think I never stop hoping. That, no matter what life throws me, I can find, somewhere, a kernel of certainty that all is well.
But lately, I’ve been taking a hard look at what hope has actually done for me. I’ve come to the conclusion that hope is like a friend who has captivated and entertained me all these years but never really offered anything.
Think about it. Hope is never happening now. It’s always floating just above the horizon, shimmering in some undetermined time. If it’s, as Emily puts it, a perching, singing bird, then it’s a bird that never takes flight, or certainly never lands.
Not to take away from Emily’s lovely image, but I imagine that if hope were a cocktail, it would be grenadine-sweet and sport a colorful umbrella. And as I mature, I think it’s time for something stronger.
I’m ready for life to give it to me straight. The way Jim Carrey does when he says,
“I don’t believe in hope. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire. Faith leaps over it.”
Yes. I’ll have a double shot of faith, please.
The fear is that by committing to faith, I’ll be giving up control. Or that, if I live purely by faith, I’ll become an inert mass of complacency.
It’s that fear, I think, that divides the two: hope allows for fear and faith banishes it.
I guess it’s my choice. I’m not sure how to live fully by faith, but I do know that I can start by choosing new words. I can replace the word hope with faith or, better yet, train myself to use positive, declarative sentences.
Instead of lingering in the rosy haze of hope, I can prepare my mind for the reality of what I intend and expect to happen. So when fires crop up in front of me, I’ll be ready to leap.
I hope you’ll join me.
