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" About hope, I am somewhat at a loss. It is so easy to say I hope to—the tongue slides over it. I think perhaps hope can only be realized by contrasting it with despair. And I am too lazy to despair. Please don’t visit me with it, dear Lord, I would be so miserable. Hope, however, must be something distinct from faith. I unconsciously put it in the faith department. It must be something positive that I have never felt. It must be a positive force, else why the distinction between it and faith? I would like to order things so that I can feel all of a piece spiritually. I don’t suppose I order things. But all my requests seem to melt down to one for grace—that supernatural grace that does whatever it does. My mind is in a little box, dear God, down inside other boxes and on and on. There is very little air in my box. Dear God, please give me as much air as it is not presumptuous to ask for. Please let some light shine out of all the things around me so that I can what it amounts to I suppose is be selfish. Is there no getting around that dear God? No escape from ourselves? "
― Flannery O'Connor , A Prayer Journal
