Hope Redeemed, Somewhat

 

[You may need to scroll down to find the previous entry called “Hope in Hopeless Times.” Best to read that first.]

As I mentioned in the previous entry, I wasn’t ecstatic about every “Celebration Rock” show I wrote and produced. I wasn’t even pleased that a few programs actually had to be aired. Some were rushed, not at all thoughtfully prepared. Others were ill-conceived to begin with. The one on “Hope” was wordy. I talked too much. And even what I had to say was less than helpful, I thought.

I made up the story, for one thing. That conversation with a friend never really happened. Like a parable, or a bit of theater or creative fiction, the story was my way of connecting one’s (the listener’s) yearning for hopefulness by identifying with someone of a kindred spirit. I am aware that parables tell fictional stories in the third person (“Once there was a man who…”), stories that are not factual but nonetheless “true.” Where I crossed the line was in telling the story in the first person (“This man came to me and told me…”).

That problem aside, the real issue I had with the program was its many, many words, interrupting the flow of meaningful lyrics.

I had just suffered through replaying that program a few weeks back, wrote it off as a bad week, and then only days later found the following note in the debris of my files.

“Dear Jeff,

Thank you for the show which aired January 18, 1981 with the theme of hope and hopelessness, which was built around the interview with the silent interviewee. I appreciate the genius that it takes to write such a story and my belief is that the genius is in being able to recall such an interview or to have been able to make up the whole thing. Either way, it was a stroke of creative genius on your part and I was greatly impressed. In fact, I was so impressed, that if you have a copy of the script, I would love to have it.”

The letter went on to some minor “housekeeping details” about previous correspondence we had had. The writer was a pastor in another city, a regular listener, and one who was honest enough to offer some less positive critiques now and then.

The lesson in this? It’s like a preacher who steps into the pulpit on Sunday morning, knowing she/he has a weak sermon to preach; but the sermon must be delivered from its mediocrity, and one hopes that would happen by the grace of the God whom we preach. I can’t count the number of times I’ve stood at the door of the church shaking hands with folks after the service, somewhat embarrassed over that day’s sermon. (Oh, if I had only had more time to prepare! I should have prayed more over this one. I wish I had tried preaching on another of the day’s texts.) And then someone comes by and holds, not merely shakes, my hand, and says with deep sincerity, “Oh, thank you for your words this morning. You’ll never know how much it helped me! It was just right!”

The other side of the coin: the sermon on another Sunday was thoughtfully and prayerfully prepared, well-written, and especially well-preached. And no one noticed. Sabbath passes away, and Monday comes and it all begins again.

Guess what? There is always HOPE!

Hope in Hopeless Times

[This “Celebration Rock” blog is inactive, except for occasional (monthly?) entries that keep the e-journal of radio remembrances alive for me personally– and for anyone else who enjoys a look back at my syndicated radio program.]

The tape is labeled “Hope” and is numbered “619.” There is no date on the box or reel, but listening to the show I realize that it was produced for the first Sunday in 1981. When I first transferred the old reel-to-reel tapes to CD, I listened to this one and wasn’t all that impressed. In fact, each time I’d pull it out later and listen for some “hope,” I’d think, “Oh. It’s that one. Ugh.” But rummaging around in a box of old letters the other day, I ran across a note from a trusted colleague who had another opinion of the program altogether. So, I listened with his ears. And I tried hard to see (or hear) his point.

The program opened with a cut from the “Cornerstone”  album of Styx. The song was titled “Lights.” Over the instrumental introduction, I set the scene: a new year, and a search for new hope in a troubled time. And then Styx sang:

Give me the lights, precious lights
Give me lights
Give me my hope, give me my energy
You can turn the wrong into right
Precious lights
illuminate me, carry me away…

Then I set up the theme of the program, by quoting the beginning of a conversation with a friend in his mid-20’s, a guy who had come to me with a problem. He told me he was looking for some hope in his life. But if he couldn’t find it, he would stay with plan b: “When hope finally runs out, I have an escape plan: first I cry, then I fly.”

Script:

That was his religious ritual of escape. First came tears…he readily admitted that when his life seemed to be hopelessly stalled, by one disappointment, or defeat, or one pain after another, he wept. It didn’t have to be his personal pain; sometimes, he wept for others with whom he could closely identify. And then after crying, in the privacy of his room,  he would go to his desk drawer, and pushing aside some school stationery, he would retrieve a small plastic bag of hashish. And then he’d get stoned.

“First I cry, then I fly.”

And then what, I asked.

“That’s my problem,” he replied. “When I come down, I still hurt.”

He was sensitive and caring about people… but I told him that if I were to help him, I’d have to know two things about him: “First, what is it that hurts so deeply. And second, what is hope? For you?”

Beyond the script:  Before going on to his answers to those questions, I played Neil Diamond’s “If You Know What I Mean.

“When the night returns just like a friend
When the evening comes to set me free
When the quiet hours that wait beyond the day
Make peaceful sounds in me…”

Can we find peaceful sounds and and hope-filled signs in the new year? Back to the conversation:

His reply to my first question– what hurts– is this: I think I identify too much with the pain of other people. Is empathy the word I want? I look at the morning paper and read stories that make life seem like such a waste. Sometimes it’s like having the breath knocked right out of you. Except it’s not breath. It’s hope. With all that’s going on in the world, I’m scared, man. I feel helpless; I feel powerless. I feel like I’m being held hostage by an inability to cope with the world’s problems.”

Silence. Perhaps too brief. I should have waited to let him go on, but I jumped in before he had a chance to describe for me what hope is for him.  The program segued back to the music of Styx: “Why Me?”

“You know you’ve had enough
You cant take another day
Where to go and what to do
You’ve got those bills to pay
You’re really not alone you know
cause everybody says,
Why me?”

Script: I’m sharing a conversation with a friend. Oh, you won’t hear his voice. It’s one of those personal conversations that you don’t tape. It’s more important to listen. After the too-brief silence, I asked him what hope was for him. “Hope is like a fire inside. Sometimes its fed by good human experiences…some heart-warming story in the newspaper, or some good news filler on TV, or you meet a person who seems to brighten people’s lives, or you make a new friend, and then hope flares up and the fire roars. And it gives off light and warmth. But sometimes the fuel supply is cut off or you begin to worry about something, or you’re disappointed that something didn’t work out. The fire is reduced to just an ember, a glow, a spark. But as long as there’s any sign of life in that fire, he said, I feel like there’s hope, there’s life. so what I want to know is how can I keep hope alive?

A longer silence this time. And then I told him we’d have to work on his answer together. Maybe some stories would help. [ Segue to “Wondrous Stories” by Yes]

“I beg to leave, to hear your wondrous stories.
Beg to hear your wondrous stories.”

We draw strength from the wondrous stories of hope that other people have lived out. Just this side of Christmas, there is that wondrous story of Jesus’s birth in a seemingly hopeless time. Follow his life as he grew, as he died. And then there was resurrection, the most wondrous story of all, the ultimate triumph of hope. 1 Corinthians 13:  three things are eternal: faith, HOPE, and love. Hope is lived in expectation of what God will finally do in our shared future. So hope is not merely some form of secular optimism (everything’s gonna turn out OK); hope isn’t based on some human desire for Utopia. Hope in the scriptures is rooted in God’s plan for God’s people, God’s constant and comforting presence in every situation that cries for hope.

Again, Styx: “Borrowed Time”

“Faith be with me now
I’m just a dreamer in a dreamland”

Is hope just something we dream about? I read 1 Peter 1:3  and its mention of a living hope. To be sure, I’m leaving script behind and getting sketchy now, but you can see the direction this “Celebration Rock” program was heading in as 1981 dawned. Next I played a perennial favorite for any new year show: “Time Passages” by Al Stewart. I followed that with Burton Cummings (formerly of the Guess Who) and a song entitled “I’m Scared.”

“now I’m terrified;
never been much on religion but I sure enough would like to hear the call
come on now give me a sign you’re listening to me
you hear me talkin’, you hear my cryin’,
its confusin’ to me, Lord, I’m terrified
never been much on religion but I showed up,
just fell down on my knees…”

More script from me, and then a contemporary Christian song written by Michael Omartian, “Hold On” sung by Matthew Ward. [A quick web search turned up lots of lyrics to songs entitled “Hold On,” but not the one I was looking for!] That song led to the central proclamation of that show: In Jesus Christ, God conquers all that gets in hope’s way. There’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I followed that with a song by another Christian artist, Scott Wesley Brown: “You gave us faith to move a mountain, but Lord I’m having trouble with this hill. And I know I need to step out on the water…I don’t need to move a mountain, I just need to move my heart.”

Bob Dylan’s 1979 “Christian” album “Slow Train Coming” included the next song on the show, “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking,” which included the lyric:

“Gonna change my way of thinking,
Make myself a different set of rules.
Gonna put my good foot forward,
And stop being influenced by fools.”

Nearing the end of the program I quoted Henri Nouwen, though what I’ve transcribed off the tape may not be an exact quotation. “When you pray with hope, you turn yourself toward God who will bring forth [his] promises.  It is enough to know that [he] is a faithful God. This hope gives you a new freedom which lets you look realistically at life without feeling dejected. And this freedom comes through in the words of the one who wrote: hope means to keep living amid desperation, and to keep humming in the darkness. Hoping is knowing that there is love. It is trust in tomorrow. It is falling asleep and then waking when the sun rises…As long as there is hope, there will also be prayer, and God will be holding you in [his] hand.

Two more songs: from Carole King:  May you follow the “Passing of the Days”

May you travel bright and cheery
The many roads ahead you’ll have to blaze
Gonna be hard times to make you weary
It’s a part of the passing of the days

And the program concluded with the England Dan — John Ford Coley song “(Light of the world, shine on Me) Love Is the Answer.”

So that is the gist of the program labeled “hope.” The music was fine, but as you might suspect from this lengthy entry, my comments were too verbose. I talked way too much. I liked to think of “Celebration Rock” as a fast-paced show, but not this one. And that’s why I had filed it away as a “loser.”

Then I found the letter that you’ll find in the next entry.