It's a family tradition. When anyone in the family stumbles across this movie, we can't change the channel until the parade scene...You see my cousin's daughter is an extra in the scene and you can actually see her face in a shot...and the back of her brother's head....All this was a while back, before her streaks and his piercings...when they looked like small town kids. I like them better now.

But participating in this odd family ritual got me thinking..."Hope Floats"...sorry, that doesn't work for me.
Maybe hope does float to the top of a sea of despair, like Ivory Soap...but it's not the right verb...

What does hope do?

I think hope sings...

What did they do in Selma...
What did they do on the plantation...
What did Israel do in exile in Babylon...(read the Psalms, or better yet, sing them)
What do we do to comfort ourselves walking alone on a dark night...

We sing...

Hope doesn't spring eternal...it sings eternal...it dares to enter the world of poetry and the artistic, emotional possibilities of music...put them together...and you can sing...

Walt Whitman...I sing the body electric...
Isaac Watts...I sing the mighty power of God...
The Gershwins...Of thee I sing...
Civilla Martin...I sing because I'm happy...

They sing of hope in the divine mystery of our physicality....
of hope in the delivering power of God...
of hope that the country we love will heal and
in Ms. Martin's case, she sang in honor of the hope of an elderly, bedridden friend, who still faced every day with joy and expectation...

Hope sings....can we?
What should we sing in these days?
Any suggestions...

Who's singing songs of hope these days?