Standing Up Straight

Before Studs Terkel died in October, Alex Kotlowitz interviewed him for the January/February 2009 issue of AARP The Magazine. I thought this piece a good note for beginning a new year.

In his 96 years, Terkel had seen ups-and-downs aplenty, and he remained an optimist to the end. He insisted that “Hope dies last…. Without hope, you can’t make it. And so long as we have that hope, we’ll be okay.” Terkel himself found that hope come alive in people helping people. “Once you become active helping others, you feel alive.”

Terkel, who had lived through the Depression, was emphatic about putting too much hope in the rich and powerful. “The lessons of the Great Depression? Don’t blame yourself. Turn to others. The big boys are not that bright.” He was thinking about our current economic mess.

His words, however, made me think about deeper matters of human hope, about what to do when the feelings just don’t come, and about ultimate grounding for hope. His words made me think about those times “when all supports are washed away.”

I think of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. Jesus dead. Life ended. No more hope. And yet he rises – God raises him! The last word is not death but life. The order is reversed in Jesus: not just the usual from life to death, but from death to life.

Here is reason to hope. What happened with Jesus is our story too. We were baptized into it, drowning sins and rising to new life. In our dead ends, God is doing something new. In Jesus we see it before our very human eyes and dare hope again when all was gone.

The feelings we get when we “turn to others” and help them, as Terkel urges us – perhaps these feelings are hints of the eternal truth we see in Jesus. We have reason to hope after all.

No wonder Christians call this “Gospel” meaning “good news.” Jesus is hope’s bottom line. He make us stand up straight.*

*See the AARP article for Terkel’s story for the standing up reference.