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Page Update:
Saturday, February 28th, 2004
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Hope Where There Is No Hope
Click for larger view
David Berry, 2004
Acrylic on Masonite, 32" x 48"
A child’s life offers is no experience to prepare for world shattering disaster. When events beyond imagination rip through reality there is no concept of hope to counterpoint an alternative to unimaginable terror. The vise of fear and confusion that the ego holds on each of us makes seeing beyond the illusion an impossible task when we travel alone.
In the throws of addiction, abuse, depression or confusion we may seek the ego-comforts of our misery rather than embrace the positive advances of those that promise relief. We can more easily trust the brutal experiences we know than the promise of an unknown alternative. The false ego fights hard and dirty to maintain our illusion of self, and sometimes it is impossible for our mind to not be worried and simply be happy.
In the painting, Hope Where There Is No Hope, Meher Baba in the form of a fireman carries a small child from an unsurvivable caldron of flames. The child looks ahead, cringing frightfully even after crossing the burning threshold, barely able to register anything through a blind of horror. In such times we might not be able to recognize whose arms we are in or by what means we are carried through dangers. We may only feel the pain of heat, the sting of tears and the choke of smoke. With little perception of either illusion or reality, hope is not a consideration.
It is only when through faith we have firmly imbedded the inevitability of hope that we can suffer through the darkest times without embracing and shoring up false ego. The promise of faith is a trust in what is beyond ego and beyond any perception of the world, for it is a matter of surrendering our belief to a reality that is beyond what the mind can know. Faith does not rely on facts, promises or even hope. Faith is blind trust in God without any reservations or guarantees. Absolute faith in God requires an absolute abandonment of ego.
There will be times in our life when hope is unimaginable. We will not be able to see the face of our rescuer through the thick smoke of desperation. Yet, in those moments we can still know that we belong to something greater and that we are more than the singularity of individual experience. With faith our wishes may not come true, but we can know with absolute certainty that in a reality beyond our awareness we are never alone and that there is always hope beyond all hope.
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