Still Hopeful

Like many, I too have grown tired of the liberal rhetoric, which promises “hope,” “peace,” “change,” and “dialogue.” These words have been taken over, and the manipulation of the linguistic meaning has altered their reality drastically. I admit that I cringe when I hear a liberal speak of compassion or blissful coexistence of many different faiths. However, I don’t think that we should stop speaking of hope simply because the left has drained the meaning and symbol from it. In fact, I see it more a call to arms: to restore its true essence.

Recently I was asked why I am a hopeful person. I have read and studied my share of philosophy and theology but I must admit that for me, it is not any philosophical treatise that serves as a primary catalyst for the hope that I continually express (whether in writing or in conversations with people). It is my experience of suffering.

I was thirteen years old when I saw, for the first time, a human being die a meaningless death. This was during the war in Bosnia, which lasted 1992-1995. It was a quiet day: no shelling, no shooting, no random screams. I was hiding in my apartment, peering out the window from time to time, hoping to see some signs of life.

A young man was walking across the city square, moving his body as fast as he could. It was dangerous and foolish to be outside because you never knew whether the shelling will randomly start, or whether a sniper will act like a god on a mountain, taking the lives of civilians.

This young man, whose name I don’t know, was carrying a large piece of glass underneath his arms. The glass was large enough to fit in a broken window, which was likely shattered due to shelling or detonation from shelling. He was a few feet away from my view. Sniper struck. Only once. The young man fell and glass shattered. He was hit in the head and was dead instantly. I thought that this kind of death happened in slow motion (perhaps from watching too many movies) but I was wrong. With one pull of the trigger from a fellow man, whose being was enveloped and taken over by evil, the young man who carried the glass was erased from existence.

My mother wrapped me in her arms and tried to shield me from this vision of absurdity. But I was still able to see the lifeless body in the middle of the city square, and at that moment, I felt as if I was stained by evil.

I didn’t think anything of it. In fact, as the war progressed, I became more inward and silent. I displayed a lack of reaction to death the surrounded me.

The sight of nothingness and the hollow cry that resided in my being would continue for many years. The circumstances changed from time to time; from place to place. There are some events that even now I dare not speak of, but the utter reality and experience of evil remains as strong as ever.

And yet, this is not the reason to fall into despair.

The hope that I deeply know is not superficial. It is a constant reality, which brings me joy even if I am melancholic. The hope that I deeply know and hold onto is directly linked by a thread to my memory, which is filled with details of empty and barren landscapes. But this thread could only have been conceived by the imagination of our Creator because it is precisely because of this strand that out of darkness comes light.

Only God can illuminate our mind and heart. In order to keep going, man needs only one glimpse of God. Man needs only one flame (however tiny and perhaps even inarticulate), which will ignite the fire within. The small flame leads man towards the act of loving his neighbor.