A word on Hope

Hope. A word we've heard more of this year than we have in long time. President Obama has given us a cause to hope again, yet the feeling still seems generally foreign and forgotten. It's an emotion our society doesn't speak about in earnest much these days, preferring to retreat to the scepticism and pessimism instilled in us from abundant heartbreak in our past. This pessimism inflicts our thoughts - we don't trust the kindness of strangers on the street, and our dreams for the future - we all still hope the world gets better, but are far from certain that it will. Honest to goodness Hope is in short supply.

The other emotions get more face time; joy for example sees its fair share. And although joy would seem to be the opposite side of the coin from hope, hope realized if you will, I've seen much more joy than childlike hope in the past decade - at weddings, graduations, parties and whatnot. So where is the hope?

We have holidays for love (Valentine's Day), holidays for fright (Halloween). We have holidays for luck (St. Patrick's Day), for patriotism (Independence Day), and even holidays for reasons we don't really remember (Cinco de Mayo). Christmas was once a day, a season, of hope, but now it's shed that image to mean more in some ways, less in others. But I wouldn't say Christmas is a time we're filled with hope. New Year's could be a day of hope, but generally we chose to look back, not forward. So why isn't there a holiday of hope? I say there is. And it's today.

If there ever were a day which represented hope - unchecked, wild and delirious hope it is today: Pitchers and Catchers Report to Spring Training. Hope Abounds.