Listening with Hope

Grayson Hunter

Grayson is the youngest of our two sons. He works in the film and television business in Atlanta that has grown exponentially recent years. He professes there is more work now being done in the industry there than anywhere. He is extremely good at what he does and takes great pride in staying ahead of the curve, technically and creatively.

What he actually does in the business involves designing, programming, and controlling the lighting on large scale film and television sets. I was not even aware that this was a thing when I was involved in the business.

In order to write an earlier blob post, I had talked to our first son John Hunter, several years ago, about Hope, and now thought it might be time to catch up with the “young folks” again. Grayson and I have grown much closer over the years, as I think father/son relationships are supposed to, but don’t always get there. He knows more about my Hope discussions than most, since he has helped me with them in the past, and offers this up front:

“I will tell you that over the period of quarantine and the pandemic with Ellie (partner/girlfriend) working full time and me being at home not working or seeing anyone, I was feeling pretty much devoid of Hope. Feeling that things weren’t going to get better….not maybe that things wouldn’t get better, but I was asking myself, what does it all matter? I guess that’s because I had never seen or experienced such a dramatic shift in human or civilization stability. And I realized how fragile this can be. That fragility definitely rocked my Hope.”

What most conversations begin and end with these days are big complicated issues that tend to be polarized. Pandemic, political and social unjustice, economic inequities issues are all on top of us at once. We talk about Faith, Hope and how they affect his life. He suggests that animals survive on instinct, and that maybe we humans do as well, but need something more powerful to sustain us. “Maybe it is our intellect and compassion instead of outright aggression.

“One thing I have always thought about your Hope project is, where do agnostic people like me, or atheists fit into to the faith thing? I understand that there is always a human connection, but maybe more than that is necessary. For me, Faith is a passive thing that you can put your belief in and then set it aside. My idea of Hope is that it is an active thing that you have to work at. By overcoming adversity and knowing that you have the strength inside of yourself to get through things in life, this slows me down, and allows me to be more Hopeful. But this is built not bought. You’ve got to work at it. No matter how hard things get, I have seen how strong we are together, and that gives me Hope.”

I still wanted to know more about whether he feels his generation has learned much from ours. We talk about generational, political and sociological divides. I don’t know where his young wisdom comes from, but he says that listening has been a big part of his maturity and growth out of a turbulent youth. He feels there is too much desire to be “right” or to express ones opinion without hearing what a stranger, casual friend, co-worker or relative is trying to say. I believe Grayson has found a place in his heart to project a feeling that allows people to sense they are being heard, and then an honest conversation can take place. A feeling of trust, he explains will mostly allow people to actually hear one another.

I ask him if he feels things are changing, and if the folks in his generation are aware of the divides that still exit:

“You can’t not talk about it. If you drive or walk around Atlanta you see banners hanging from freeways, murals that constantly change and people are walking on the beltway expressing themselves. It’s not as simple as waiting for the old guard to die off, because the divide is still there in every generation. And there are bridges to be crossed.”

I feel better about the place he has come to, and I have Hope that his generation still has many divergent views, but he says we should make sure we all listen to each other and find some common ground. There are too many important issues of the day for that not to happen!

Good luck Grayson. And good luck to us all!