Hope & Faith

Hope and Faith are two concepts Man has always struggled to understand and accept because these ideas exist outside the realm of the human mind. Since the beginning of time, Man has constantly tried to figure out the meaning of life by understanding and achieving immortality. Some people misuse and disregard the one clue, nature, that would help them better understand the idea of the higher power. Others are so enthralled about the thought of perfection and surpassing mortality that they become crazed and perform drastic actions. The few people who understand that the world is progressively deteriorating because of the selfishness of others become pessimistic and lose hope and faith. Whether people struggle to grasp the idea of hope and faith, ignore the signs that lead us to the source of these concepts, or have given up on renewal. The solution to these problems is looking pass the barriers and working together as a unit to achieve something that will benefit us all.
On February 5th I attended an Urban Spaces, Urban Voices seminar for Year of the City. The guest speaker was David Simon, the creator of the HBO hit, The Wire. The Wire is a show about Baltimore’s inner city police department’s homicide unit. Simon writes and produces The Wire, the most unique cop show on today’s television. Although Simon emphasized that the show was purely fiction, most of his characters and story lines where based on real life. Simon retrieved his information when he spent a few years following around the detectives of the homicide unit in Baltimore.
Simon’s unique, cynical and truthful outlook on life was created through his experiences as a Baltimore native, watching the police department of Baltimore and working in Hollywood. Many would say he is pessimistic with true insight but no resolution; however, I would have to disagree. I think David Simon is a man who is slowly losing hope and faith as he discovers how human beings really work.
Simon mentioned how society has split into two worlds; these two worlds are radically different from one another. He said there is no more working class; there is just the wealthy and the poor whom are striving to be wealthy. Capitalism fuels the wealthy and everybody is out for their own gain. He knows from first hand experience that television plays into the cynical desires of people. This cut throat division between classes and everyone’s desire to achieve an ideal lifestyle is eventually going to lead to society’s downfall. His revelation about the future and perspective on society causes him to lose hope and faith. Instead of losing faith and hope Simon should try to join people together to help salvage the world we have left an reach a lifestyle where there are no barriers or divisions just a unified whole.
In Gerard Hanley Hopkins God’s Grandeur, the speaker mentions how people generation to generation have distanced themselves from the nature. He mentions how Man has exhausted the riches and goodness of Earth, pushing ourselves further from God’s creation and essentially His greatness. Unlike Simon, the speaker is full of hope and faith; he believes that is the only way Man can be rescued and Earth renewed. Instead of ignoring, distancing and dividing ourselves from nature, we need to join together and break barriers between Man and nature so we can deepen our connection with Earth through hope and faith in God’s greatness.
In Flannery O’Connor’s A Good is Hard to Find, the Misfit is similar to David Simon in the aspects of hope and faith. David Simon is slowly losing faith and hope in life, whereas the Misfit has completely lost hope and faith in life causing him to kill innocent people. The Misfit can’t handle the fact that he doesn’t know everything. The Misfit has a problem with the way people live their lives. For example, the grandmother is constantly talking about Jesus and praying but she didn’t care about anybody but herself and didn’t live a Christian life. The only way the grandmother showed true faith and hope was when she thought about somebody, the Misfit, rather than herself. The grandmother could be compared to the society Simon has so little hope in, the society that only thinks about pure profit and power.
David Simon, O’Connor and Hopkins all have a problem with the way people live their lives. They all believe the only people as whole can succeed is through unity. We must first stop think about ourselves and our individual needs and think about the needs of others. By fusing as a solid unit and thinking about the well being of humanity we will gain hope and faith together. By aging hope and faith we will be one step closer to God’s grandeur and everlasting love.