Realism and Hope

In the past two or three months I have been wrestling with another one of those paradoxes you hear me talk of so often.  I guess I would call this one the conflict between adopting an attitude of realism and the attitude of hope.  It seems I am constantly torn between being realistic and being hopeful.  I often just don't know which attitude to take.  Let me give you some examples.

Just before Christmas I traveled for four days, visiting friends of the college in Kansas City, Denver, New Jersey, and Manhattan.  I flew 6 legs, on four different airlines, and in 96 hours was searched 12 times, finding myself on at least three occasions standing in a crowd in my stocking feet.  My nail clipper was “de-filed” meaning the nail file was broken off.  And I was the one “randomly chosen” to be “wanded” with the electronic beeping stick; randomly chosen every time it was possible.  Early this month I traveled to London with the choir.  The same serious security repeated itself.  Last weekend I visited three donors in southern California.  Having waited on Sunday afternoon for 45 minutes in a line, my wife and I were rudely told my “personal item” was not a personal item at all and we would have to go through another long wait to check bags before returning to stand again in the same 45 minute line. Ellen was angry; I felt humiliated and powerless.  Through it all, I struggled to understand the need to be realistic about terrorism and to change the way we do the “travel business” in our country while at the same time hoping it was all going to become less burdensome and humiliating. 

For many months I have been watching the political situation in Zimbabwe too.  My love for that country comes from the two years my family and I spent there 14 years ago.  With plans to launch GC's exciting new off campus program there this fall (GiZMo), I have watched the once stable nation slide into both economic and political turmoil.  I follow the news of bad inflation, of new laws to hamper a fair election on March 9, and government supported lawlessness to take property without fair payment.  Realistically speaking it has not been a happy few months.  Yet I pray harder and harder, hoping for the best, hoping for things to change, and even acting on that hope by signing a lease with option to buy 300 acres there for a new Greenville “campus.” 

Elsewhere in the world, events navigate between realism and hope too.  Argentina’s economy collapses and the effects are felt at the World Bank and around the world.  Last year’s peace in Northern Ireland teeters in the wake of school shootings.  Afghanistan stabilizes, but warlords jockey for power, while nearby Pakistan and India threaten nuclear confrontation.  And of course in the Middle East I cannot imagine how U.S. envoy Zinni knows how to balance realism and hope in the seemingly never-ending negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

And the challenge comes home too.  As the economy here in the U.S. has fluctuated since 9/11, I have imagined the caution and hesitation this can create in the minds of prospective donors to our college, as well as the in the minds of prospective students for this spring and next fall.  As Enron tumbles into bankruptcy and K-Mart declares Chapter 11, I see evidence our recession is worsening.  But then when Greenspan says he will not lower interest rates again, and I hear multiple experts predict an autumn comeback, I see the market move up and I am hopeful the recession has bottomed out.  All the while I wrestle with decisions about pricing and enrollment for Greenville College for next fall, along with decisions about the timing of a comprehensive campaign to maintain the wonderful momentum we have felt in recent years on campus.   How much does realism impact hope?

Last fall, Ellen needed no chemotherapy, and felt little or no pain.  It was a wonderful four months of hope.  But just a few minutes from now, she and I will make our pilgrimage to Barnes Hospital to begin the sixth round of chemotherapy in three years.  Her pain has returned, so now it’s likely her newly regrown hair will soon disappear again.  How do we balance realism and hope?

Both realism and hope, it seems, are good things.  When realism is neglected hope becomes fantasy and we live in a world of denial.  That is true for our response to terrorism in the air, for our decisions about politics in Zimbabwe, for our plans regarding the college, and certainly for my family’s plans for life.  But when hope is neglected realism becomes resignation and we live in a fatalistic world that paralyzes and robs us of joy.  Our suffering fails to stretch us, and you have heard me speak too many times to forget that I believe stretching is essential for growth. 

So as I prepared to speak with you today, I thought I would remind you of the need to hold these two goods things in tension, to recognize their paradoxical nature, and to embrace this paradox as the high calling of thoughtful mature people.  I believe that message is true.   But when I began to turn to God’s Word, I found a deeper more profound message.  When I searched for passages that called us to realism, I was disappointed.  There are not many.  Romans 12:3 stands out: “Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” That is surely a lesson in realism for those of us who wrestle with pride; something I suppose in one way or another we all do.  But when I searched for illustrations of hope, Scripture bubbles up and literally runs over and over and over.  Friends, in God’s Word, “Hope Wins!” 

Of course the message is not that hope prevents suffering; or that hope is fulfilled quickly; or that hope is easy; or even that hope is just a good feeling. 

   - On the contrary, first, hope is usually rooted in suffering.  In Romans 5:2 Paul tells us “…We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” 

   - And second, hope is patient.  The passage I just read says suffering leads to patience as part of the path to hope.  Later on (8:24), Paul underscores that hope is patient. “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently”. 

   - And third, hope is hard because it calls us beyond what we see. In the next verse, Paul says,“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” 

   - And finally, hope is more than a feeling; it is an effort of mind.  Hebrews 6:11, “We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”  I Peter 1:13, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Even I Thessalonians 5:8 makes the same point symbolizing hope as an armored helmet that protects not our heart but our mind!

I could make the point that “Hope wins” by elaborating each of these four characteristics.  But instead let me tell you the story of Bernardo Rodriguez and his aunt. I have learned about him this week in a book I have been reading by Jonathan Kozol. To understand his story well however, I must first tell you a little about where Bernardo lived.  South Bronx, just north of downtown Manhattan the “center” of western wealth and symbolic of American success, is an unimaginable horror of poverty and suffering.  Consider these glimpses….

The 1273 apartments in 38 buildings comprising Diego-Beekman Houses are some of the most physically repelling and profoundly dangerous buildings in America.  Between 4000 and 5000 people live here, paying nearly $1000 a month for two bedroom apartments to a private company in Boston.  They are subsidized by the government for all but $200-$250, 30-40% have no telephones, often the ceilings have holes that allow one literally to see into the apartment above, water runs down through the holes when people above attempt to shower, and no more than 12% of the residents have jobs. (Kozol p61)  Unemployed adults and youth, often dealing or using drugs constantly occupy the halls and entries and stairwells.  It is not uncommon to see users with rubber ties around their arms and needles sticking in their veins leaning against the entry doors of the building or in the hallways as you go in and out. 

Rats large enough to climb trees and kill squirrels emerge from the river at dusk in hordes, eat through walls, and chew up telephone lines. A Kentucky Fried Chicken and a grocery store were forced to close permanently because the rats were tearing open food boxes.  A seven-month-old boy was attacked in his crib three times, and a doctor said it had been years since he had seen bite marks like those on the child’s finger.  The mother is terrified but can’t move out.  The city moved her here and she has no money to go anywhere else.  (Kozol p99, 11, 114)  The number of rat exterminators has been cut from 30 to 10 in a decade, and speaking of doctors, the number available for all NYC schools had dropped from 400 to 23 by the mid-nineties. 

The hospitals are frightening places, so ill equipped they sometimes run out of penicillin. A nurse who works in one wears a band stating that in an emergency she is not to be taken there.  Referring to Bronx-Lebanon hospital, Mrs. Alice Washington, a resident gives this report. “Every time my doctor says I have to go back to the hospital I cry,” she says.  “He called me last time after I had had some tests and said he wanted me admitted.  I told him I didn’t want to go.  He said, “Mrs. Washington, you’ve got to go.”  He said a bed had been arranged.  They told him they would have it ready in two hours.  I went to the hospital and, when I get there, it’s six hours before they can put me in a bed.  Then when I go upstairs, the room is not prepared.  The bed is covered with blood and bandages from someone else.  Flowers are scattered on the floor.  Toilet’s stopped with toilet paper.  Bed hasn’t been made.  I’d been through this once before.  Either you wait for hours until someone cleans the room or else you clean the room yourself.  “David [her son] went out in the corridor and found some linen for the bed.  First, he had to wash it down.” (Kozol p14-15) When this same woman went to the hospital again a few months later, it took from 7pm until 3am to be admitted, two days to get an x-ray, and she was held for four nights in a basement corridor before a bed was free. (Kozol p98) 

Many of the largely African American residents are either in jail, involved with drugs, or with prostitution.  “Riker Island, a “415 acre Alcatraz in the East River” was erected largely on compacted trash…less than 1000 yards across the water from the Hunts Point Sewage Treatment Plant.” The several prisons there house 20,000 inmates, 92% of them Black and Hispanic.  The city spends $58,000/year maintaining each adult prisoner and $70,000/year to maintain each juvenile.  In a twelve-month period, about 130,000 men and women move in or out of this facility and the others just in South Bronx.  (Kozol pp142-143) 

Drug use is everywhere.  Consider this graphic evidence.

“At twelve-fifteen, on St. Ann’s Avenue, three people from the needle exchange are setting up boxes on three tables underneath the sheltered area at Children’s Park.  The box on one table contains condoms.  On the second table are written materials in English and Spanish.  On the third table are two kinds of needles.  The needles wrapped in blue are longer and stronger and can be dismantled.  These, according to a former user who tells me she became an addict at 15 but has been clean for nine months and now works for the exchange, are for cocaine injectors and for others who “inject deep in their bodies.”  The needles wrapped in orange, which are shorter and are known as “diabetic needles,” are the needles of choice for the skin-poppers.  On the same table as the needles are a box of “cookers” (bottle caps) and bleach kits wrapped in plastic…..Four thin trees, from one of which…various stuffed animals are hanging, stand beside two wooden benches…..On the wall of the building to the right side of the lot, there is a sign in faded paint.  “This park was built for and by the people so that children would be treated with respect.”  At one p.m., addicts begin to line up at the table with the needles.  Some are elderly men in tattered clothes with ravaged faces and intense eyes.  Others are young black and Hispanic women who are neatly dressed, composed and patient.  Of about 1,000 addicts who are registered with the exchange, between 150 and 200 show up every afternoon.  Each addict provides a registration number and is questioned about frequency of use, then counts out the dirty needles he or she has brought…and receives an equal number of clean needles. One young black woman says she uses six needles a day, counts out 60 needles, and is given 60 clean ones for ten days.  Those who have never been before and have no registration number are asked to bare their legs or arms or throat to show fresh tracks.  “A good vein for injecting is one that feels like a small rubber tube under a sheet,” says one of the pamphlets on the second table, which also explains in pictures and words how to know if you hit an artery (“when you pull back, the blood is frothy”), how to rotate injection sites, and what to do in case of overdose…..the whole thing seems almost as normal as a visit to a doctor or a dentist.” (Kozol pp. 58f)

And of course there is prostitution.  Consider this account.

“The places where you see them most are underneath the Bruckner and the Major Deegan [expressways].  It’s dark under the Major Deegan, but you see them, seven, eight, or nine of them on this side, seven eight, or nine of them on that side.  “Some of the women are buck-naked,” Mrs. Washington reports.  I find this impossible to believe, but Charlayne says, “It’s true.  They’re naked.  They have nothin’ on.”  I ask her, “Literally nothing?”  “Nothin’!”  Seeing the look on my face, she says, “Some of them wear G-strings or a pair of tiny shorts.”  “Is this only in the summer?”  “Even in October, in November.”  Many of the customers for the prostitutes, she says, are truckers.  “But you can also see men in cars—men of all races, every kind.  The woman climbs right in, does what she has to do, then goes and gets a hit, then back out on the street to find another one.  Sometimes they make him buy the drugs first.  Then they do it.”  “How much do they make?”  Three dollars…or five dollars….” “How many are addicted?”  “All of them are.  You wouldn’t do that for three dollars otherwise.” (Kozol p67)

So that is a snapshot of realism in South Bronx.  Let me conclude by sharing the account by Jonathan Kozol (apparently a secular Jewish author) of Bernardo Rodriguez, his aunt, and how hope wins.

 “My meeting with Bernardo’s aunt…has “an other-worldly feeling.”  She is, to start with, an ethereally pale and thin and pretty woman who looks fragile but whose voice is silvery and strong.  When she speaks she looks right in my eyes.  Her gaze is so direct that I look down sometimes in order to avoid her eyes. 

She begins by telling me that the elevator in the building had been broken for a long time.  “Something was wrong with it and people had complained.  There had always been some blackish grease that dripped down from the ceiling.  My mother had asked the management to fix it but I don’t think anything was done.  “The day he died, it was six-thirty in the afternoon.  The evening.  It was sitting with my mother here in the apartment.  A neighbor came up and knocked on the door and said, “There something wrong.  There’s something sticky dripping from the elevator.”  “My mother said, “It’s only grease.” But the woman said, “It looks like blood.”  So then my mother was afraid and went downstairs to check, and it was blood, and it was coming through the ceiling of the elevator, which was [stuck] on the second floor.  “So then my mother came upstairs to make sure that the children were all right.  We found the other children but we could not find Bernardo.  “So, basically, that’s when security was called.  And then police.  They found his body down there on the elevator roof.” [While playing in the hall, he leaned against the door, which opened and he fell four stories through the open shaft and struck the elevator roof….[[He] was not discovered until his blood began to drip on passengers. p103]  “We couldn’t believe it.  He was alive.  Now he was gone, like that.  It takes a while for a bad thing to sink in.  Even to this day I don’t accept it.” “Does your mother accept it?”  “No.  She does not accept.”….[Bernardo’s mother] her sister, she says, is still away in prison.  I ask if she was brought her for the funeral [for her son?]  “Yes, she was here.  She had to come in handcuffs but they took them off outside the church so that the children wouldn’t see them.”  “Did Bernardo visit her in prison?”  “No. He never had the chance.”  “How long has she been in prison?”  “Seven years.”  “Have you seen her since the funeral?”  “Yes.  I took the other children there two weeks ago.”  In August, she adds, she will take them again.  “Because they’re going to have a children’s day, with picnics.”  “How much longer does she have to serve?” “Maybe three more years,” she says, but sounds unsure. 

“What was Bernardo like?”  “Serious,” she answers.  “He did his lessons.  He loved his teacher and he never missed a day of school.  He passed his tests.  His last test he passed with an 85—in mathematics.  All his papers he brought home to let us see.  My mother kept them all, here in this album.” Over the chair in which she is sitting there is a communion photo of the boy, dressed in a black suit and necktie.  Taking another picture of Bernardo from the album where she also keeps his last arithmetic exam and various other documents from school, she says, “This one I took on Christmas morning.”  The photograph shows Bernardo in pajamas with a lighted tree behind him.  “We had a beautiful Christmas day.  Before our dinner Bernardo stood up on a chair and said our prayer.”  “Was he religious?”  “Yes,” she says.  “He knew all of his prayers.  He went to his religion class on Saturdays.  He went to mass on Sunday.  He had been baptized and had had his first communion.  He did not yet finish his first penance.  He did not know sin.”  “Are you religious too?”  “I am,” she says.  Although I am afraid of pressing her too far, I ask a question that has been in my mind since she began to speak.  “I don’t understand.  I need to ask.  How do you handle this?  It seems as if it ought to be unbearable.  How do you remain so calm?  What gives you strength?”  “I pray.”  “Does praying really ease the pain?”  “Yes, it does.”  She gazes at the Christmas photo of the boy in his pajamas.  “I am 19.  Bernardo could have been my brother.  But he was more like my child.  If God has taken him, I know it must be for a reason.  He must have needed him in heaven.  He must have wanted him.  He must have said, “This boy is better off with me in my own kingdom.” So He took … Bernardo to be with Him.”  I have heard statements like this often in [this district of South Bronx], and although I know that words like these give people consolation, I have often wondered if they come from absolute conviction or are more like recitations of enforced convention.  I have also wondered many times, “If God is a good power, why would He want to take a little kid before he’s had a chance to live?”  I pose this question to Bernardo’s aunt, but phrase it somewhat indirectly.  “You said you don’t ‘accept.’ Yet, in a way, it seems you do.”  She looks for a time at his picture.  “In a way I don’t accept,” she answers finally, “and in another way I do.  I have to believe God picks a person when his work on earth is done.”  “At eight years old?” I ask, and then regret my question.  “You can be eight years old and still your work is done.”  Then, in that silvery voice again that seems to come out of a different place from where we are, she says, “God knows when somebody has suffered long enough.  When it is enough, He takes us to His kingdom.  In heaven there is no sickness.  Here, there is sickness.  In heaven there is love.  Here, there is hate.  On earth you grow old or else you die in pain.  In heaven you are young forever.”  The spell cast by her voice and by the piercing look within her eyes subdues my inclination to ask her more questions.  After a few moments, I get up and thank her for her willingness to talk.  “I wanted to talk,” she says.  “You can come back and visit me again if you would like…. Touching my shoulder with her hand, she says, “We have had troubles.  But please say we are not a bad family.”  It seems important to her to see me write this down before I leave.  In the hallway I notice the elevator door still seems quite loose, and although it doesn’t open when I press it, I decide to walk down to the street.  The stairway smells and its walls are smeared with something greenish.  This is where Bernardo played for eight and a half years. On the corner of Cypress Avenue a number of children are standing in front of woman with a small cart, waiting to buy ‘icies’ from her.  Not having eaten since the morning, I get in line and buy a cherry icie, then walk to Brook Avenue to get the train.” (Kozol pp103-107)

So there we have it; realism and hope.  Which do you choose?

References are to: Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol, (Harper Perennial: New York, 1996)

Dr. James Mannoia