Celebrating Hope

Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante ~ Thinker, Poet, video game designer

I must confess that the Wonder Pup and I may have been holed up in our bunker for too long. It’s evident that our absence created a gap in our story — a story intended to offer hope and strengthen faith.

While I could make excuses — a politicized virus, sloppy and questionable elections with plausible accusations of influence peddling, and the weaponization of social media — I can only attribute the gap to my reluctance to draw others into my story out of courtesy to the reader.

Recently, I have been told that, on rare occasions, I come across as too smug and snarky for prime time. Surprising, I know! Other times, I strive for perfection and look for the least offensive way to connect others to a world that most do not know how to engage. Nonetheless, I realize that living in the gap isn’t sustainable because the gap hinders the self-discipline needed to build strength just as the absence of community undermines the foundation of hope.

There is a heaviness that permeates the very air we breathe that manifests itself in an unprecedented fear; a fear so ominous that it weaves itself into every conversation and taints everything American, down to the last slice of apple pie.