“Why are so many kids these days depressed? I mean, back in my day, we had to actually work to get anything. I walked to school uphill, both ways! These kids should be grateful, with their fancy TVs and their smartphones and their participation awards! I mean, back in my day, life was actually hard! Really, it’s nothing more than gravity that’s keeping you down.”
Venom spat in your face, eyes that dare you to look them in the eye, bodies that yearn to ‘beat some sense into ya’. It’s a story told to every rising generation, a lecture we have all heard and that continuously falls on ears that say, “I get it, I do, but you are wrong.”
Who has read "The Hunger Games?"
"Harry Potter?"
"Lord of the Rings?"
"A Wrinkle in Time?"
Who likes the characters? The underdogs, the little guys, the children? Who likes reading about the small defeating the great, good defeating evil?
Now, who has heard of the long defeat? The idea that evil will always persist, that it can never be defeated, that a new bad guy always rises again? That the heroes can become the villains?
Who has read "The Giver?"
"To Kill a Mockingbird?"
"The Outsiders?"
Who likes the characters? The unpopular, the misunderstood, the children? Who likes reading about growing up and maturing and learning wisdom?
Now who has heard of the dark side of adolescence? The idea that the heroes we envision when we are young do not amount to all we believe them to be, that maturing isn’t gaining something but killing a piece of yourself, the idea that growing up crushes something precious that can never be recovered?
Who, when you were small, imagined you could fly?
Who thought of wings sprouting from your rusted shoulder blades, strong wings to carry your dripping self far away, to dip your hands into the sky, to help you to kiss the stars and tell them “Hello?”
Who imagined throwing off the weight of gravity and becoming something that was beyond? Who imagined that you could be a god for a little while, just until you got sick of it, until you could go home (because even God needed a day of rest)? Who searched high and low for Jesus and love and who received no reply when you screamed in the hollow cathedrals we constructed from the bones of Icarus?
Who was told to be realistic, to think practically, to be serious about this? Who was told, when asked what was driving your dreams, to maybe have a plan B, just in case?
Who takes an extra shot of espresso in their latte and breathes in the dust of even the crowded spaces, because yeah, you still need to survive even if you don’t know what for?
Let me rephrase.
Who heard about the shots that were taken at a school the other day, and sipped your steaming drink as the dust of mortar shells settled in another country, because you’re used to hearing about one and the other is far far away…
Who looks to the long drawn battles of the past and sees victory and progress after victory and progress after victim and persecution? Who looks at the present (at the battles that have been won) and sees the dust settling to reveal the forgotten bodies, and looks to the future and cries, because we may not live to see our prophecies fulfilled, but one day, one day, one day…
Maybe.
Who looks to the future and says “maybe” and hopes, despite the evidence that has been presented to us? Who sees the cracks in the very crust of the earth and the holes in the layers of our sky and says, “I will work to fix that,” and who decides that actually, going against tradition isn’t really a bad thing, but rather a necessary thing? Who believed in the songs of your heroes and kissed your dreams sweetly and passionately on the mouth? Who seeded the future with the same hope you wore as armor? Who looked your savior in the eyes and saw the cracks in the mirror staring back and said, “I can work with this?”
So we wear hope as armor and go to war praying to a God whose followers have left us for dead, calling us “damned” and “heathen”. We labor and we cry and we kiss in dark corners and we work until the blisters on our hands bleed like the hearts on our sleeves. We hold the hands of the children we once were, too caught up in the idea of protecting and leading the children to remember that it is the blind faith of the child that leads us... We ask forgiveness of people whose hands are bloodier than this lump of meat thumping in our hollow chests, and we offer up our forgiveness and our time and our work-worn selves in return.
And every day we run our fingers across the globe and ask it “Where does it hurt? Where can I fix you?”
And when it whispers “Everywhere,” we whisper back, “I know.”
And we, with our soot dusted, blood-tipped wings, staggering and limping, choose to meet it, working towards the “Maybe” that we hope and pray that the future holds.
Because it’s something greater than gravity that’s keeping us down.
But still, we rise again.
