In the concluding chapter of my book, Storycatcher, I focused on the power of story to inform, inspire, and activate–especially on how story creates a sense of community, and that all communities create story. At the time I wrote this book (2004-2005), questions of hope and despair were huge in my mind. We were in the middle of the downward spiral of the Bush years that have led us to even greater downward spirals in the economic lives of ordinary people as well as nations, even greater environmental urgency, and 30+ other major local, national, and global crises. So why do I feel so much better?

I have hope. And it was not until that moment in Grant Park, in downtown Chicago two weeks ago, that I realized how bravely I had been carrying on with much of my heart encased in despair. That despair is falling away like an encasement of dried mud through which–all out of season as it is–a strong green shoot is pushing through. Something green is coming in November, in January, and in my American heart. As a public person, I don’t think it’s very useful to get up in front of people or lead seminars and focus in on despair. I have spoken and written with as much hope as I could muster for the human condition and our abilities to take the great leaps forward that are surely necessary for our survival, and the survival of the ecosphere in which we live and breathe and have our being. However, privately, I have endured much despair. And the election has lifted this despair: not just in me, but in so many people I am talking with, listening to, reading on the web and elsewhere.

We are discovering in ourselves a personal reattachment to hope, and the maturity to know that hope is not an emotion, hope is an action. Hope is doing something, and keeping on doing it. And it requires a vision to organize hope: that is what President-elect Obama provides me, a sense that an organizing principle is in place that can help bring the good deeds, hopeful stories, and desire to contribute to the common good to some kind of focal point. 

In this same chapter of Storycatcher, I paraphrase a Ray Bradbury fable about a time when people are full of dread for the state of the world and what the future might bring. Into the city one day, a young scientist comes to Central Park pulling a huge contraption. He announces to the gathering crowd that this is a Time Machine and if they like he will travel to the future and see what happens. Despite their fear, the people send him off to time travel. In a great rattling thrust the machine lifts off and disappears. Time passes.

One day the scientist comes rattling and chugging down out of the sky, lands in the park, and jumps out to deliver his news. The people assemble, cringing in trepidation, but the scientist looks remarkably cheerful. “Great news!” he tells them, “The future is much brighter than you think. There is peace and justice, enough food and water, people are living in cooperation and walk gently on the earth.” The people are stunned: this is not what they had expected. Something begins to stir in them–a sense of participation, a desire to do something to help make this happen. They set off to create the future that has been promised them.

This is exactly what I feel is happening in the US, and perhaps elsewhere, right now: something is stirring in millions of people. We are experiencing a sense of participation, a desire to do something to help make the world the kind of place inspired in us through the victory of Obama–which is really a victory of vision and values. A victory of restoration of hope. I know it’s going to be work. I know my income may plummet, that I may be caught in the larger story in ways that bring on hardship–but the story now has an organizing principle that aims toward common good. So, I find myself willing to face risks, to make sacrifices, to accept challenges–it’s a good way to spend the rest of my life.

In Bradbury’s story, years pass, change happens, and while life is not perfect, the world is indeed in better and better shape. One day a curious young journalist goes off to find the scientist, now a very old man, and his Time Machine. He is retired, gardening, the machine a rusting hulk in the middle of his lawn. “Tell me about your journey into the future,” she asks.

The old man smiles, “My dear, I didn’t actually go anywhere,” he admits. “I just gave the people hope.”

President Obama has a much harder task: he has given us hope, and now he must lead a lot of actual work. What we make of this moment is not only his, but ours. I saw a button the other day, I may be ordering them for Inauguration Day gifts, that reads: “The most important position in any government is CITIZEN.”

Okay, I get it. Let’s go!

Copyright ©2009 Christina Baldwin. All rights reserved.

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