Anticipation and Disappointment Part 7
February 21, 2026
Anticipation and Disappointment Part 7
Every disappointment carries a secret message: this world was never meant to satisfy us fully.
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast” is one of the most enduring lines from Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man” (1734). It names a fundamental truth of the human condition: we are innately oriented toward something beyond the present moment. Even in our darkest hours, hope continues. We may be wounded, disillusioned, or weary, yet the impulse to hope continually re-emerges from within us.
In the lines below, Pope goes on to suggest why hope is inexhaustible. We hope because we are souls confined to this world, bearing an unquenchable longing for our true home. Earthly life, however meaningful, cannot fully satisfy us. Something in us remembers an origin beyond time, and until we return to that Holy Origin, our desire stays restless.
“Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatriates in a life to come.”
At the deepest level of the soul’s desire lies the yearning for home. To escape our sense of confinement, we endlessly attempt to recreate that home in countless forms. We build cathedrals and palaces, gardens and pyramids, skyscrapers and spacecraft. We create art of astonishing beauty and invent experiences meant to simulate paradise. We conquer lands, extend influence, and even dominate others in an effort to feel the vastness, power, and security of a heavenly dwelling. We strive for perfection in our relationships, our bodies, and our lives. But these marvels are earthly manifestations of what we hope to return to in their most genuine forms. We use concrete material to anticipate and imitate that which is not concrete … that which is of the soul’s realm… heaven. But we are so confined to this world that heaven can be described only in concrete terms, for example: “the streets are paved in gold” (Revelation 21:21).
Yet no matter how breathtaking or brilliant these creations are, none fully satisfy the soul’s longing. Home is not something we construct. Home is our authentic being, in its rightful context, in living union with our Creator.
The soul’s return home is the true substance of our lives. This journey requires the gradual purging of whatever obstructs our union with the Divine. When we experience disappointment or hopelessness, it is often because the ego’s plans have been thwarted—or because the soul’s longing for restoration has been delayed. Yet even in loss, hope is reborn. The soul regenerates hope because it is committed to recovering the greatest loss of all: our true home.
Spiritual practice: Contemplate your soul’s true home.
Self-inquiry: What do you experience as being purged?
Prayer:
Dear God, I am grateful for the hope you planted in me at my making. Create in me the capacity to let go of whatever blocks me from you. Amen
