Written by Marianne Mansfield
I ‘hope’ you have a great time. I ‘hope’ my plane isn’t delayed. I ‘hope’ the salt shaker upending itself into the cake batter didn’t ruin the flavor. Simple stuff to hope for in the larger realm of existence.
Hope. The news this week has me wondering about hope. What does it mean? And what happens when men and women, boys and girls begin to believe that ‘hope’ is an unattainable state of mind? Even if they once aspired to it, life’s circumstances have ripped hope away from their outstretched hands.
As I write this on Wednesday, April 29, a man was pulled from the rubble of a building in Katmandu, Nepal, 80 hours after the building fell in on him during the 7-8 magnitude earthquake that struck the country over the weekend. During that 80-hour ordeal, what was his relationship with hope? Did it ebb and flow? Did it weaken over time? Or conversely, did it become stronger as his plight became more desperate? Could he hear rescuers near him? Was he strong enough to call out to them? Did hope give him a voice? He said he was buried with other bodies. Was his hope drained by their inescapable presence? Or did they bolster him, setting him apart from those who had already died?
I can guarantee you, this man did not expect a building to fall on him. Hoping for safety from that was probably as far from his mind when he awoke that morning as it was from yours and mine when we rose today. And yet, when the inconceivably catastrophic event occurred, did hope rise up in him? And if so, from what wellspring?
What about those gay Americans couples, holding their collective breath as the Supreme Court this week hears arguments over whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees same sex couples the right to marry. What level of hope exists in them? Of course, there is no way to make a sweeping judgment about that. As individuals, we hope differently. Each of us hopes with a distinctive level of commitment, based on any number of variables in our make-up. What has our past experience been, what do our religious/spiritual beliefs tell us, how would our most trusted advisors counsel us? What is our wellspring of hope?
And then there is Baltimore. If we zoom in the camera lens, there are enough images of hope–and lack thereof–to keep us puzzling long after the media has left the citizenry of the city alone.
Take the looters, the rioters, the thugs. Of course what they did was wrong, not to mention self-serving and self-promoting. But imagine for a moment, a potential thug who is magically gifted with hope for a better life. Imagine a young man or woman who can imagine a future brighter than the past. Imagine a person who has a dream. Imagine a person who imagines.
It makes looting, destruction, and violence no less reprehensible, but it might just make those who engage in it seem a little less unlike the rest of us. Imagine yourself without hope.
Baltimore Orioles COO John Angelos called out all of us in his Twitter feed about the closing of Camden Yards to the public for Wednesday’s game. You can find his entire piece here http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb, but below I’ve reproduced the section that speaks to hope, or the lack thereof.
“The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
Yes, Mr. Angelos. When contrasted to the hardship being endured by poor Americans, the significance of a professional baseball game played without benefit of a crowd shrinks to the size of a blade of grass in the outfield.
And finally, there is woman the media has dubbed the “Hero Mom.” You’ve seen the video clip. She tracked down her teenage son and forcibly removed him from the melee ratcheting itself up in the streets of Baltimore. News folks tittered. People applauded her. ABC morning host Charlie Rose chided her about her ‘right hook.’
Where is the hope in this moment? It is in this mother’s eyes. It is in her determination to rescue her son from danger using whatever means she had at her disposal. This isn’t funny. It’s desperation we see. Tonya Graham is an unemployed single mom. And yet, it is her hope for her son’s future that drove her out into the city streets to find him and bring him home.
It’s hope, my friends.
It’s hope.
