BBC Radio 4 2016-02-03

BBC Radio 4 2016-02-03

Browsing idly for a few minutes yesterday, I came across a feature online entitled My Future Self. Over a dozen young girls were asked what they want to do when they grow up. Then each designed her own photoshoot, posing as the person she wants to become.

“Ever since we studied the solar system in primary school,” says the first, “I would imagine myself up in the sky, discovering new things.” Like her, our own daughter is twelve. And yet I don’t think anyone’s put her on the spot and asked her what she wants to be. Why should we? She has all the time in the world. And lives in a country at peace; with food, clothing and shelter, education and security.

Whereas these young girls have, in the understatement of the article, “directly experienced conflict.” They are Syrians, refugees, in the North of Jordan. “Many people told me a girl can’t become an astronaut.” Haja continues. Like most of them, she wears the hijab. But her arms are crossed, her feet splayed and her smile supremely assured in her borrowed astronaut’s suit. Her future self will, “tell young girls with aspirations to not be afraid, to... be confident and know where you want to go.”

Teacher, police officer, surgeon, photographer. What is so very moving is the vibrant hope. We can barely imagine what trauma these girls have endured and what privations they still face. And yet their dreams soar.

Hope. The privilege of the young. When we were going through a tough time a decade ago, what kept my husband going was our toddler daughter’s smile. She ignored all our troubles, blithely trusting each new day to deliver goodness and joy.

Hope. Much misunderstood as irrational, or even lazy: merely buying a Lottery ticket and crossing your fingers. Also maligned and neglected. Be realistic! Don’t get your hopes up. Manage your expectations.

Hope. Sometimes the choice of the very old. Yesterday was Candlemas, when candles were traditionally placed in windows as the hope of light in the dead of the year. We remember Mary and Joseph, visiting the Temple with their first born child, and two people with historic hope: the prophet Anna, eighty four, never leaving the Temple as she waited for the salvation of Jerusalem; and Simeon, promised he would see the hope of Israel before he died. This tiny baby was placed in his arms and he said, Now, Lord, I can go in peace. This is the light to lighten the world.

To many, the Christian hope in the future seems founded on something pretty unlikely.

And how likely is it, on the face of it, that Haja will become an astronaut, Fatima an architect, Nour a lawyer?

But there are two things we can say for sure about Haja’s aspiration. First, it’s not impossible is it? Who dares say she cannot reach the sky? Secondly, it’s far more likely if she puts her trust in it.