SENTINEL WATCH March 17, 2008 Issue

SO MUCH FOR HOPELESSNESS

WALTER C. RODGERS

RECENTLY I SPENT A MONTH in Pakistan at a time of great political turmoil. But despite political instability, intrigue, and what many saw as hopelessness, on an individual level the city I was living in was awash in hope. Two young friends became engaged to be married, and I saw dozens of other weddings, again testifying not only to hope but also to a kind of confidence in people's futures. Other young people I knew there were going about planning the rest of their lives with great anticipation and joy—some launching promising careers in television, others applying to graduate schools to earn MBAs.

The country's plague of religious violence and suicide bombings did not extinguish individual hope any more than it could stop individual acts of kindness, laughter, or genius. Political uncertainty is only one small slice of a much bigger social pie. It is not the entire picture by any stretch. Indeed, even in a political context, hopelessness is just flat wrong.

I have faced countless "hopeless" situations, and I was always wrong to think about them that way. God knows no hopeless situations. Experience has taught me that hopelessness is in fact an illusion, a dream out of which the one dreaming it needs to be vigorously awakened.