Hope’s Failure

Hope’s failure is its lingering death,
      more prolonged than that of old age.
Hope divine, thought to be eternal,
      rages toward its sudden, cold end,
While another, adorned with its death shroud,
      wheezes on, fatally immortal.

      While that might seem dark and morose, understanding its “Hope divine,” depends upon Romans 8:24. Divine hope ends when we close our eyes upon this world, and open them to our Savior’s loving countenance. Then, our living hope will have outlived its function, and die with a “sudden, cold end.”

Romans 8:24b ESV Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

      “Fatally immortal” hope is the oxymoron it seems. As it is essentially temporal, fleshly, its death shroud conceals the hopeless morass of unrequited love, a pathetic existence centered upon the erstwhile emotion of some mythical, brief interpersonal connection. It seems immortal because it refuses to die, continuing with the regularity of a toothache.