{"id":4214,"date":"2025-06-13T05:27:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T05:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=4214"},"modified":"2025-06-13T05:34:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T05:34:53","slug":"hope-is-muscle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=4214","title":{"rendered":"Hope is muscle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Hope is a muscle not wishbone or whisper,<br \/>\nbut sinew and tendon<br \/>\nthat flexes beneath the skin<br \/>\nwith every reimagined dream of a better world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">It is not fragile,<br \/>\nbut the steady clench<br \/>\nof hands in the dirt,<br \/>\nthe slow, stubborn lift<br \/>\nof eyes toward a dawn<br \/>\nthat hasn\u2019t yet arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">We exercise hope<br \/>\neach time we imagine<br \/>\na world remade:<br \/>\nwhere children run to school<br \/>\nin a city unscarred by war<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Instead of running from guns at feeding stations.<br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\nWe exercise hope each time we imagine<br \/>\n<span class=\"s2\">A place where hard borders are softened<br \/>\ninto warm welcome\u00a0<\/span>Where knocks at the doors are from friends, <span class=\"s2\">instead of agents of the state sowing fear of deportation <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">We exercise hope each time we imagine<br \/>\n<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Sitting down beside rivers teeming with fish<br \/>\nand where forests and fields of wheat breathe<br \/>\nwithout fear of tanks and guns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Hope is not passive\u2014<br \/>\nit sweats and strains,<br \/>\naching after use,<br \/>\ngrowing stronger<br \/>\nwith every act<br \/>\nof radical imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">It is the muscle<br \/>\nthat refuses to atrophy<br \/>\nwhen news darkens,<br \/>\nhope strengthens the heart\u2019s resolve<br \/>\nto plant seeds<br \/>\nin battered soil,<br \/>\nto write poems<br \/>\nin the rubble,<br \/>\nto dream aloud<br \/>\nin the silence<br \/>\nbetween sirens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Hope is a muscle\u2014<br \/>\nembrace it,<br \/>\nstretch it,<br \/>\nshape it<br \/>\ninto the world<br \/>\nwe long to see<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hope is a muscle not wishbone or whisper, but sinew and tendon that flexes beneath the skin with every reimagined dream of a better world. It is not fragile, but the steady clench of hands in the dirt, the slow, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=4214\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}