A THEOLOGICAL VIRTUE

if my faith is strong enough what need should I have for hope ... does this sound gnostic to you as it does to me ... but naive innocent young gnostic not gnostic with a capital g and all the baggage that must bring us from the history of the movement ... but naturally gnostic or seeming so ... certainly sincere ... but without an education in the guts took you decades to earn ... the gnostic should die quickly by stroke or guillotine detaching as he lived detached his mind from the rest ... god help the gut-dying gnostic forced into a world of soil and waste ... who but a gnostic could put the two words mercy and killing together or assisted and suicide ... naturally he thinks such an end is hopeless ... why there's nothing in it to be learned ... but hope we answer ... how it's not faith but returns to it for assurance ... not love but a necessary attendant ... not written or confessed ... not cerebral or ethereal ... just hope ... the spirit in the gut