Living on Hope
“Even the youthful grow tired and weary, and the young men stumble and fall. / But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” -Isaiah 40: 30-31
This verse was most likely written during the 6th century BCE, yet people in every corner of the world today know it by heart. One has only to walk from campus across Skinker and have a quick conversation in order to find the truth in these words.
Faith, religious or otherwise, is a commitment to hope. Its power, the legendary healing and strengthening magic of faith, surrounds us as students of Wash U every single day. It is one of the many lessons that we all should take the onus to learn from our allegedly most hopeless neighbors, the homeless community of St. Louis.
[pullquote]Faith, religious or otherwise, is a commitment to hope.[/pullquote]
Once, as a heartbroken and melodramatic high school sophomore on Valentine’s day, I wandered into a homeless shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota. Having grown up in poor rural Virginia, my new exposure to realities of urban homelessness perplexed me. But maybe growing up without the exposure to urban life also kept me from developing certain understandings and stereotypes shared by my friends; to me at the time, a homeless shelter during the day was just a building with open doors, and people looking for someone to connect to, not so different from my privileged, self-absorbed, young self. Stepping across the threshold of the shelter that day, a door opened for me that would never close; the relationships I began to form in the Dorothy Day Center became a focal point of my life and education for the rest of high school.
During my time as a student in St. Louis, I began finding words to formulate the questions that had nagged me for so long. And as I continued to forge relationships and broaden my own community in the new city, one question in particular kept me up at night: In a city with so many empty houses, with so much violence on the streets from guns, weather, and wild dogs, with so much wealth for development visible but inaccessible only a couple blocks away, how does a homeless person find the strength to keep going? What could possibly give someone the strength to stand outside every day, refusing to give up on life or the world around them, bracing themselves against the worst of weather and humanity until night comes, and getting up to stand strong again the next morning?
My relationships in the homeless communities around me continued to strengthen, and my new friends opened up to me about their lives. I learned about their families, neighborhoods, and the people they’ve lost or left behind. Eventually, I gathered my courage and began asking that central question: “What gives you hope?”
For many, the answer began with religion. Eventually, accepting their invitations, I began to join them for impromptu prayer circles in Central West End, joining hands with whomever was close and feeling the power of that most unexpected human connection. One man, Kevin, was insistent that I take part and even lead a couple prayers, calling his fiancé Jennifer with my phone so that she could hear my underwhelming and improvised words. I was surprised to find in their company a renewal of my own faith, not in God, but in the surreal power of faith itself. In the love it creates between strangers. In the strength of sharing a commitment to hope. In the accepted promise that every day is a blessing and every struggle a test and that maintaining faith against all odds can be a victory worth celebrating all on its own.
[pullquote]I was surprised to find in their company a renewal of my own faith, not in God, but in the surreal power of faith itself.[/pullquote]
Of course, not all of St. Louis’s homeless population are religious. But I find that almost everyone I speak with has some faith, some commitment to hope. Over a sandwich outside of Kayak’s, Will tells me that he hopes he will see his daughter again, that every night he goes to sleep with the commitment to wake up the next day, and to stay strong enough that he is not a broken man upon their eventual reunion. Mark, a poet with a wrist broken from being jumped and then re-fractured while escaping wild dogs, finds his hope in the strength of his mom – a sweet lady suffering from severe mental deterioration. Mark takes his strength from watching her fight the disease, knowing that if she can hold on as long as she has, then there is nothing he can’t come back from. Laquifa’s faith that her now sevenyear-old daughter Skylar will see better days gets her through the worst of them. And Bradley, a friendly wanderer I’ve run into as far West as Shrewsbury, keeps his faith in the people around him: “If I can smile, and you smile back, and we know nothing else about each other beyond that smile, we’re seeing each other as people, and there’s gotta be some good in that, right?” There’s a touch of deep sincerity in his voice that he doesn’t let show very often. “The person who meets my eyes makes up for a day of people avoiding it, it reminds me that we’re all people, we’re all lost. And people can do a lot of bad, but we do a lot of good too. People can do anything.” Being homeless is the most dehumanizing experience one can feel, Bradley tells me. But the kindness of strangers reminds him that he’s human, too. His faith in humanity is also a kind of faith in himself: that he’s one of many people who struggle and fight and are capable of doing good and are worthy of being loved.
[pullquote]His faith in humanity is also a kind of faith in himself, that he’s one of many people who struggle and fight and are capable of doing good and are worthy of being loved.[/pullquote]
On a bus to Hamilton Heights, my friend Keith is starting to nod off. He tells me he hasn’t slept in a bed in almost seventeen years. Even when he has access to one, he prefers to sleep in a chair; he worries that at this point being in a bed might cause him to oversleep, and he can’t afford to miss a shift of work. As he nods off, a child across from me starts crying and her parents seem on the brink as well. I pull out a tennis ball (I have a couple that travel everywhere with me) and, seeing her fixate on it, start playing catch with the child until Keith opens his eyes. We’re at his furniture store, so I give the ball to the girl and we get off. “I hope in tomorrow” Keith tells me when I finally ask him. “The sun has risen every morning I’ve been alive… everywhere I’ve been…I know it will tomorrow. That gives me hope.”
Faith and sincere religious beliefs are blamed for many things. Our world today feels divided by people holding seemingly irreconcilable beliefs, and people are defined by the hopes they commit to. On a university campus so committed to finding truth through scientific methodology, unshakable beliefs are often ridiculed, even when their persistence perplexes us. But everyone believes in something. Everyone is human. Maybe it is time to start embracing the beauty of faith, of sincere commitments to hope, and to begin learning from those who use their commitments to drive them. There is power in faith, and power is neither good nor bad. Faith is both a belief in something and an empowerment to fight on, to persist against all odds and overcome all struggles. Faith itself is something to be celebrated.
Those who hope will renew their strength. This is the knowledge I’ve taken, one of many lessons the city of St. Louis has taught me, not so distant from that one accredited to Isaiah twenty-six centuries ago. And I see this strength all around me: in the activists, who keep faith that a patriarchal rape culture can be dismantled. In the investigators and public defenders I work with, who keep faith in the humanity of people even when seeing them at their worst. In the teachers who refuse to give up on their students. In the students, who refuse to give up on themselves.
So, I make sure as often as possible to reflect on the things I have faith in, and I invite you to do the same. Whether it’s God or a friend, your family or the good of humanity or the perseverance of your own mind and body; find strength in it. When you stumble and fall, use it to get up again. Commit to that hope. Let the faith keep you from growing weary even when the entire world feels tired and dark.
Jordan Hughes ’19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at hughes.jordan@wustl.edu.