In this U.S. Presidential election season, there has been an extraordinary amount of conversation about hope.  Senator Barack Obama has made hope the centerpiece of his campaign.  His political rivals are campaigning on “reality.”  Those rivals implore those tempted to believe in Obama’s brand of hope to stay grounded, to maintain their level heads.  They caution that some hope is false and sometimes dangerously false.  They suggest this “hope” stuff is not healthy, but rather a narcotic whose “kick” could leave us all sick.  All this opposition to hope has left me asking one question.  “When did ‘hope’ become a four-letter word?”        

Hope is not a concept that should need any defending.  Another word for hope is faith.  For a nation that puts “In God We Trust” on its money and “under God” in its Pledge of Allegiance, the value of faith should not require explanation.  Faith is the belief in something we cannot see, smell, taste, touch or hear.  It is the belief in something that we cannot verify scientifically, but we know viscerally.  We know it to be true in our hearts.  Faith does not have to be religion.   However, someone who does not have faith in something will ultimately lose the will to live.  That person will cease to value life, his life or anyone else’s.  I would argue that even a casual review at our national violent crime rates will suggest that the lack of hope is much more dangerous than its presence.  To what do people turn when they have nowhere else to turn?  Faith.  Hope.  What gets people through bad situations for which there is no good explanation?  Faith.  Hope.  The sometimes illogical notion that tomorrow will be better than today invariably makes tomorrow better than today for those who believe.  Having faith is having hope.   When did “hope” become a four-letter word?  Don’t tell me that we’re wrong to hope.  

Hope is not a concept that should need any defending.  Another word for hope is dream.  Every one of us is where we are today because of someone’s dream.  Every parent dreams that the completely dependent being they brought into the world will grow up not just to be independent one day, but someone the world can depend upon.  Every parent dreams that his or her child will have more, do more, and be more than the parent could.  Every parent has a dream for their child.  Speaking of dreaming, every one of us who is living in the United States of America in this early part of the 21^st century has been touched by the dream a man articulated in the middle part of the 20^th century.  You know the one.

I have a dream that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.  We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

You know the one!

Some of us can say our very existence today is owed to that very dream.  A dream that was improbable.  A dream that seemed foolish when it was first conceived.  A dream for which the nation was not ready.  But he believed in the urgency of now and the nation began to believe as well.  Having a dream is having hope.   When did “hope” become a four-letter word?  So don’t tell me that we’re wrong to hope.

Hope is not a concept that should need any defending.  Every single great accomplishment ever reached started with a hope.  It started with a hope in the mind of the achiever.  Sometimes that hope seemed illogical.  Invariably the achiever was trying to do something that he or she had never done, didn’t know exactly how it would be done and couldn’t prove that he or she was the one to do it. 

What if I told you ten years ago that a man would be thoroughly dominating his sport, a sport played at country clubs that not long before would not have that man as a member because of his race?  That his domination would be so complete that his competitors often concede matches mentally before they are even played?  That while his predecessors to greatness would win a handful of times in a good year, he is expected to win every single time he played an event?  You would not have believed it. 

What if I told you twenty years ago that there would be a female TV show host that would enjoy so much popularity that it would make her a billionaire?  That she would be so influential that would-be Leaders of the Free World would compete for her endorsement?  That she could cause 100,000 people to buy a particular book in one week simply on her say so?  You would have called it lunacy. 

What if I told you thirty years ago one of the most popular musical genres in the country if not the world today would feature music without melody, songs without singing?  Nothing but rhymes and beats.  You would have said it was just plain crazy.  And yet all of that is true.  It all began with a plan that no one could prove would work.  It all began with hope.

There are people who say that "selling" hope is like selling narcotics.  Encouraging folks to believe in something they cannot see is reckless and dangerous or at the very least naïve.  Don’t you believe it!  Hope is a matter of survival.  Hope is essential.  Hope illuminates the path to greatness.  Hope is not a four-letter word.  So don’t let anyone tell you that you are wrong to hope.