What Hope Means

By Miranda, aged 12 from What Hope Means

When God created the earth, he saw that it was good. If he looked at it again now, he may not see that still. But my piece explores the idea that even now, there is still hope, even if it’s not how we might think of it.

Right now, the world is not ‘good’. We are facing climate change, cancer, terrorism. We are facing overloaded hospitals, shut-down schools, lockdown. And we are struggling through it all with the idea that one day, it will be over. One day, life will be better again. We’ll stop climate change, cure cancer, stop terrorism. We’ll take the load off hospitals, open up schools, get out and about. So, people have hope. It may take a year, a decade or a century but it will happen.

Before all of this, who would have thought that ‘hope’ would mean live-streamed PE lessons on YouTube? Or that it would mean half-days in school? Who would have thought that ‘hope’ could mean hairdressers opening and restaurants doing takeaway.

Hope is a fluid concept. It could mean anything to anyone. A penny could be hope. A notepad could be hope. A flower petal could be hope. Hope could take the form of an object, a person, an idea. A flower petal could be hope. Hope could take the form of an object, a person, an idea. Hope could be a message on the wall in green spray-paint.

Too often we cannot look past our own idea of hope to see someone else’s. My piece explores that idea. The nameless person writing on the wall could be seen as vandalising the wall or spreading hope. The spray-paint words could be meaningless graffiti or a meaningful message. Hope isn’t confined to one idea or object. Hope doesn’t only exist in one person’s view of the world, it exists everywhere, for everyone.

My entry is a view of a wall in an alleyway, with dustbins and bin bags and rats and mice scurrying around. A window is broken and some shards of glass are on the floor. In short, it is no beautiful place. But in the midst of all that is hope.

The piece aims to show that in everything is a glimmer of hope. Even if it doesn’t look like hope to us, it looks like hope to someone. And just having hope means you can be inspired.