Strange the things that keep hope alive. That which is dissipated by shouts, sustained by whispers: what casual glance ignited the cool blue flickerflame? What steady breath blown keeps aglow these careful embers? Yet myself I have been harboring at least one hope for years now, one that St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, might himself tell me to let go. Sometimes it is the feeling that one cannot process how it could not be true, that to counter a certain hope would be to destroy rather central structures in one’s soul. Have I been a fool to keep hoping for impossible things? Though in truth, I can still see the possibility in it… There have been signs, I think, and that has been part of it; but what is prophecy, and what just the wishful thought? Or is it all a test, to see if I can as the prophets could: to believe in something until it happens. To see if I have the mettle to be a believer true, to see past doubt, if it makes sense to me in my inmost. If the promise has been whispered from on high, who never fails to deliver…