14-Day Hope Journey -- Climb Aboard

When did I lose the ability to hope? I know how to plan, how to analyze, and how to critique. If you don’t believe that I am “hopeless”, consider this:

1. When folks ask me my dreams I usually respond that my husband's dreams are big enough to sustain us both, share his dream and then explain how I am going to contribute to helping his dream become a reality.
2. When folks tell me that our son is “proof that God is still in the healing business” I always concur, but then I immediately explain about the steps we took to improve our son’s chances for recovery.
3. This is supposed to be about hope, but instead I called myself “hopeless”.

So back to hope. When Jesse Jackson started his “Keep Hope Alive” campaign I thought “Well I didn’t know hope was dead.” What an ignorant child I was back then. What could I have possibly understood about hope? I have two wonderful parents who love me, five siblings who treat me much better than I deserve, felt safe in the house I grew up in, have never been hungry, and have always had friends I to whom I could turn. Reverend Jackson wasn’t talking about me but he was talking to me, only I didn’t know it at the time.

I didn’t know that it was my job to hope for those who had no hope. I learned about hoping for others from a child on the Mexican border clinging to a cup of water, a cup which held his daily allotment of water.

When I read Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” I didn’t get it the first go round. I’m a black female Harvard John F. Kennedy Scholar/ former Navy rocket scientist married to a black male orphaned-at-birth Eagle Scout/ Air Force academy alum/ architect who helped heal a brain dead, blind, cerebral palsied, lung damaged baby. To me, everything is possible. President Obama wasn’t talking to me, but he was talking about me.

I didn’t know it at the time but it was pretty audacious of me to excel beyond my circumstances. I didn't know how unlikely my existence ever was until I spent an afternoon in Los Angeles speaking to delegates and leaders who were mesmerized that I'd reached my dream of becoming a rocket scientist only to discover that I meant to dream of becoming a research scientist. Be careful of the road you take for it just may take you to where it ends.

When Patti Labelle sang “Over the Rainbow” she was definitely singing to me, but somehow I forgot to make that wish upon a star. I know Judy Garland sang it first but I saw Pattie live and I like her version better anyway.

And when Al Jarreau sang "Could You Believe", I didn't really, despite listening to that song every morning for a year. Drove my roommates nuts!

So now I’m starting my own personal 14-day Hope Journey. Every day for the next fourteen days I’m going to hope for something. I’m going to hope blindly. I’m not going to plan my hope around what I know I can accomplish on my own but instead dare to dream that I can rely on others to help me achieve that which I dared not dream of last night. There’s plenty of room on this Hope Train so feel free to share your hopes with me.

Right now I hope that someone I don’t know gets this from someone I do and likes it.