I had to write this down, if only to acknowledge it.
I was working with one of my first graders the other day on the weekly spelling list — 6 year olds’ delight of course. One of the words was hope. The routine is to go through all the words making sure that they can not only spell them, but also to understand their meanings as well. This requires telling them the Spanish word. There was a little Hispanic boy who upon hearing the word in Spanish, looked at me perplexed. Noticing this I asked him if he had ever heard of that word before. He shook his head and asked what it was. The first thing that came to mind was light. I said, ‘it is a source of light in the darkness that helps you see and helps you continue to live no matter what happens.’
What I hadn’t realized before when talking with him, was that he hasn’t yet associated an image/sentiment to that word/concept. The word hasn’t been misconstrued in his mind as hope being ‘expectations for money, the image of a person, dreams of worldly success, THEE American dream, whatever replaces the image of real hope — being Jesus Christ, the Truth, light and life. I guess my point is, his mind is slowly being shaped through linguistic (and unmistakably a part of an observable) system that transfers words into thoughts and thoughts into beliefs. Whatever images/sentiments those words carry, will carry heavily into how he understands the world around him — seen or unseen.
Even within the Christian church itself, I wonder whether the word ‘hope’ is understood as it should be when we read it from the Bible, hear it from the pulpit or from the mouth of a fellow sister or brother. Why do we have hope? Why is it so elemental to faith and being a part of His church/the body? And why should the children of every generation understand what real hope is, and furthermore, have it described correctly more by our actions than simply words? We are witnesses to the Living Word.
