Looking for a little hope….

As political rhetoric boils and we approach a grim September 11 anniversary, these are times when some of us feel like a glimmer of hope is all we have.

You know, the kind of hope that makes you want to see tomorrow, inspires you to have enough faith in humanity to actually look forward to a better future.

It’s the hope that you see in a child’s eyes, or that wraps around your heart when you’re, let’s say, told by the doctor that your health is great and you should “keep on doing what you’re doing.” That kind of thing.

These days, sometimes, hope comes in sadly ominous forms. Like you hope that your child is safe at school today, or the nightspot you and your friends are enjoying won’t be the target of some nutcase with a grudge and a gun.

Or that some idiot won’t open fire on a rural highway or the grocery store or, of all places, your church or synagogue or any place of worship that shouldn’t, in this or any age, have to be shielded by armed guards.

For many, hope is life’s propellant, all that keeps you going from day to day as so many of us struggle to make ends meet in what is supposed to be a booming economy that doesn’t seem to have trickled down to the have-nots quite yet.

You hope, for example, that you’ll make the right choices at the polling booth and that we’ll actually pick some genuine leadership that will honestly makes things better for all of us.

You yearn for a time where seniors don’t have to worry about whether they’ll have that Social Security check that keeps them going or whether you’ll be able to afford to go to the doctor or if you’ll be able to keep the lights on and actually be warm in the winter or cool in the summer.

So many of us hope that the day will come when there’ll be no more homelessness, when everybody will have a roof over his or her head and beggars with signs or upturned caps will be just an odd, sad quirk of days gone by.

We’re told it’s probably fruitless to hope that all people will, one magical day, open their eyes and be able to rejoice in the fact that all of us live under the same sun and go about our lives on the same planet and each and every one of us has the same ambition to live out our lives in peace and harmony from the amazing bounty that is this incredible world we’ve been given.

It seems like a bit of a pipe dream, doesn’t it?

Well, it shouldn’t.

It’s simply not unreasonable to look for and strive to bring out the best in people.

Most of us have those friends who you know can’t and won’t say anything bad about anybody, those perennial optimists who genuinely believe everything will eventually work out.

That is the true nexus of hope, my friends.

It’s out there somewhere.

Let’s just hope we all find it.