Standing on the Edge of Dawn

I am not, by nature, an optimist.  My twin brother says we have inherited a “congenital seriousness” from our stoic German ancestors, the Hornbaughs, Radakers and Harnisches.  It was mitigated slightly by the one strain of Irish blood which made its way into the family through the Alexanders, but it still there. Unfortunately, it can sometimes show itself in cynicism or snarky sarcasm. 

Today is a day suited to cynics. 

My friend who has spent many years going back and forth to Haiti says, “I was there when the earthquake happened in 2010.  At the time I couldn’t think of anything that could be worse for the country.  This political and social earthquake is much worse.”  He said someone asked him which was worse, Haiti, Ukraine or Gaza and he responded, “My vote would probably be Gaza because of the indiscriminate bombing, but none of it makes any sense.”

Haiti, Ukraine, Gaza, and at home we see senseless gun violence, mean-spirited political rhetoric, and the lack of respect for our legal system or basic honesty and civility.  For a person like me who tends toward cynicism, it can be overwhelming.

But all of that simply argues for the need for people who offer an alternative vision, a word of hope in the face of despair. We need people who will inject hope into our conversation about the future, about each other, about society, offering solutions rather than cynicism.

People of hope discover the seeds of goodness even in the raw soil of strife. People of hope work to build rather than tear down. People of hope know there is no future in resentment or revenge, they know cynicism will get you nowhere. Only by lifting up a positive vision of what could be can we find our way forward to a better community and a better world. Remember Ronald Reagan’s quip–“When you see a pile of manure, you know there must be a pony somewhere.”

I’m grateful to see many of the monuments of the Confederacy coming down, but there is a statue at Stone Mountain, GA which has always spoken to me. It’s the statue of a young shirtless soldier, holding a broken sword, with the caption “Men who saw night coming down all around them could somehow act as if they stood on the edge of dawn.”

In spite of my tendency toward cynicism, I want to be associated with people like that–people who even when it looks like night is falling around them can act as if they are standing on the edge of dawn, people of hope.