The Human Spirit Gives Me Hope

By Ann

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This landmark is displayed in the center of Philadelphia.  It expresses love in a city that is fondly nicknamed the “City of Brotherly Love.”  Ironically, this city is known for its pandemic crime and poverty rates.  There are ghettos and traffic congestion.  But it is more than that.  There are also musuems, cultures, restaurants, parades, sports, shopping, and it is home to a diverse population.  

The landmark in the center of this particular city reminds me of the human spirit.  We are more than just animals that evolved from apes.  The human spirit is more than poverty.  It is more than wealth.  It is more than education.  It is more than ignorance.  It is more than yet it is less than palpable.  And it is wholly indescribable. 

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In Japan, volunteer technicians, soldiers, and firefighters work tirelessly to spray rods in the nuclear plant that threatens to devastate the world.   They are known as the Fukushima 50 because they work in shifts of 50 and they expose themselves to lethal amounts of radiation in an effort to maintain the nuclear plant from a meltdown.  

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On 9-11, volunteer firefighters, police, medical professionals, and tradesmen responded to the world trade center.  They responded from all over the nation in an effort to help.  And I can remember just hours after the planes crashed that the lines to donate blood would extend for entire city blocks.

Today in court, a young man stood in court to be sentenced.   He had participated in a crime over a year ago whereby he and two other young guys burglarized a home.    While in jail, he asked me to file a bail motion.  He wanted to get out to find a job, go to school, take care of his family, and pay child support.  I had heard this story so many times and have not seen many people do the things while out on bail that they promise to do if they do get bail.  Nonetheless, I file the motion and he got out.  He pled guilty and asked for time before he was sentenced so he could take care of those things he had promised.  In my skepticism I believed he was just putting off the inevitable.

He wasn’t.

He had a felony on his record, he was black with a beard down to his chest,  and in this economy – he did the unthinkable.  He got a job. 

He started out part time mopping the floors in a grocery store.  After weeks of begging, his boss gave him full time hours.  He works six days a week from 8pm to 7 am. 

He enrolled in school full time.  He has to take remedial classes because he was educated in an inner city public school and comes from a broken home. 

He takes care of his family and he pays his child support on time. 

He was sentenced to probation.  I think he is going to make it.   Sure he is no Fukushima 50 but given his background and his lot in life- he might as well be.   Because his motivation and his drive to overcome the adversity that he got himself into, it can only be explained by that intangible, indescribable, enigmatic entity known as the human spirit.