Ripples of Hope

Someone once observed that a society can be forgiven anything except for killing hope in its youth. Perhaps we could generalize and say that a society can be forgiven anything except for killing hope in its people. In human being, what air is to the body, so is hope to the spirit. Remove hope and something of the self dies.

We need only begin to voice the litany of problems, crises, cruelties, injustices, and stupidities assailing life on our fragile planet, and we can feel the “oxygen of the soul” begin to dissipate. Protecting and nurturing this vital resource to the health and well-being of persons and the planet alike will require a much higher level of vigilance than most communities muster.

Perhaps we need what Christopher Lasch has described as “a more vigorous form of hope which trusts life without denying its tragic character …” (The True and Only Heaven).

Vaclav Havel echoes that sentiment:

I am not an optimist because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning …. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I would strive for something if I did not carry hope in me.

Life and work have meaning. Maybe we carry hope in our hearts and then get to work, each reinforcing the other? Robert Kennedy said it well:

Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others… he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.