Brad's 2nd posting

Greetings!
Tomorrow I will have the privilege of co-facilitating my first learning circle with my friend Rosalyn. We picked hope as our discussion topic and ever since, it has been in the forefront of my consciousness and thinking-kinda like when you buy a car and then you notice how many other people have one just like you! Indeed, for the past couple of weeks true stories of hope were relived, celebrated, and inspired through a keener sense of awareness and revelation. Especially yesterday.

It boggles my mind how someone (who without a doubt had relatives who were so wrongly persecuted and inhumanly treated) could contribute to an atmosphere where thousands of kids and young people will now feel less safe, celebrated, and loved. (It has been estimated that the suicide rate for gay teens is 40-50 percent greater than that of straight teens). I listened with bewilderment as this celebrated athletic star perpetuated the very antithesis of the Declaration of Independence; namely, “…that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.� I sat stunned with disbelief as I heard this professional basketball player’s voice (one who surely had family members among the estimated 700,000 who died during the Civil War) send ripples of bigotry throughout society.

Heard by an unloved, unsure and confused thirteen year old…“I hate gay people. Let it be known, I don’t like gay people.�
Heard by a tormenter of such souls, struggling with his own hurt and pain…I don’t have to care about other
people and who cares about empathy. It is okay and even cool to hate people who aren’t like me. Diversity
should not embraced, it should be damned.

Heard by a lost ten year old, boy struggling with isolation, loneliness, and feeling different…“ First of all I wouldn't want him on my team…second of all, if he was on my team I would really distance myself from him…�
Heard by the playground bully void of tolerance and conscious…I don’t have to let you in. Leadership is gain
because of my authority and because I am in charge; you are out. The strength of a team is singular.

Heard by a seventeen year old girl who feels like she doesn’t fit in, doesn’t belong, and has no friends… “I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic. It shouldn't be in the world, in the United States, I don't like it…I can’t stand being around that person.�
Heard by another child growing up in the same toxic environment…Maybe the KKK sounds cool to me. Let’s
get rid of everybody who isn’t just like me.

In case you haven’t heard, my babbling above refers to earlier this week when former NBA player John Amaechi became the first professional basketball player to openly identify himself as gay. During an interview with CBS4's Sports Director Jim Berry Wednesday evening, five time All Star Tim Hardaway was asked how he would deal with a gay teammate like John Amaechi. His comments are directly quoted above and are chilling. As I heard Tim Hardaway’s interview, I just kept thinking, “How could someone, who tasted the ills of such a dish, continue to serve it today?�

I stated earlier that hope has been in my awareness, of late, and that I especially saw it yesterday even after I heard this interview. And if there’s ever a time where glimpses of hope can be seen, I have come to believe it is while looking at the faces I see every morning…“24 little reflectors of hopes� whose names are written on the hand of their Creator.

Every week or so I pick a core value for our class to share and learn about. Our core value last week was fairness; now it is hope. We created a bulletin board and divided it in half with HOPE at the top. On one side, we have WHAT HOPE LOOKS LIKE; on the other side we have WHAT HOPE SOUNDS LIKE. Most of our morning meeting time is spent around our bulletin board. The interpretation of some of the pictures brought in by the kids is truly insightful. I especially love watching the kids “read� and give interpretation to the faces of some of the pictures. My korny ideas about what hope might sound like paled when compared with some of thier ideas about what hope sounds like. Suffice it to say, we now listen to a couple songs about hope every morning from a CD that was actually produced by a bunch of kids at a magnet school in St. Paul. To be sure, their ideas of hope represent the very idea of Dr. King’s dream: the dream of giving hope a chance. I only wish they were old enough to hear the hope in Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. But for now, they have to settle for the reading and rereading of one of my favorite little stories about giving hope to one starfish at a time.

Perhaps you've heard the parable. An elderly gentleman stooped along the shore, carefully and intentionally throwing one object after another into the sea. A curious passerby moved in for a closer look.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm throwing these starfish back to the sea … before they die."
"What's the point?" the younger man looked around at the hundreds of starfish washed up from a storm. "There are so many, you're not going to make a difference."
Without hesitation, the old man threw another helpless creature to safety. "I will for this one." And so he made his way down the beach, one starfish at a time.
Brad