Hopeless Not Allowed

Because work schedules and time-frames have been altered, I participated in some HULU binge-watching.  I heard that “The Wire” was a good show, so over the past many weeks of stay-at-home, I watched 5 seasons.

Set in Baltimore, it followed a police force dealing with street-corner drug gangs and politicians.

The storyline followed attempts to shut down the drug trade, of course. Against this background, the episodes traced characters within each group as well.  Narratives focused on the choices (good and bad) these people made as well as highlighting options unavailable to them. 

I was saddened by the deaths of some of the street-punks, which was the term given to those selling on the ‘corners’.  I was distressed by some of the deaths of the ‘drug-fiends’ who bought the drugs. This wasn't all that surprising because I had gotten to know these people and their stories. 

I was stunned as I watched the screen highlight violent neighborhoods because they looked familiar.  I remembered similar boarded-up, crumbling, and graffiti-scarred brick facades of inner-city ghetto-like row-houses.

They were recognizable because I had volunteered in a downtown Cincinnati neighborhood that bore look-alike disfigurements to those depicted in Baltimore.  The scenes were identical from the ‘corners’ to the in-street-shootings, from happy children in playgrounds to those same innocents scrambling away from gun-shots, from glassy-eyed muggers to mothers cradling babies on the filthy steps of the hood.

A great deal had happened over these five seasons.  Following these characters from only one generation to the next, careers were made and lost, education advance preceded eventual decline, drug-lords expanded with predictable demise, and teen-age death was followed by grade-school replacements.

In the end, the closing scenes differed little from the opening introduction.  The life and death struggles of so many resulted only in the exchange of one participant for another.  

A little bit defeated, I felt that watching 50 episodes wasted a lot of time.  There was no ‘happy’ resolution to the situations faced in the streets of Baltimore.  I came to believe that there is no fix-all-solution to the circumstances faced by those living inner-city lives in Cincinnati, either.  

We currently share the Season of Easter with this season of Pandemic. What does or should that mean?  

Once upon a time, I heard someone say, “We can’t fix the world, but we’re not allowed to do hopeless.”

We can’t fix the downtown streets of Cincinnati, Baltimore, or any other city. But we can come alongside our neighbor. 

• We can provide one thing to one person in dire circumstances. 
• We can recognize their humanity with eye-contact and a smile.
• We can look up to see the budding of trees in the sunlight God created. 
• We can share the hope of spring and the hope of Easter with others. 

Believe it or not, the simplest of things can change lives in dramatic ways. 

Where will you start?

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)