A Hope That Has Known Sorrow

Many years ago I had the privilege of working with leaders in Cambodia who were creating a national and regional response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But HIV/AIDS wasn’t the country’s only challenge. These leaders had lived through the genocide/civil war with the Khmer Rouge and the occupancy by the Vietnamese. They were struggling to rebuild their country and repair the social fabric that had been so torn apart. On one of the days of our work together, the team I was working with helped this group of 100 leaders meet in regional groups to plan projects they could do locally based on research they had done in between meetings. Under a large wooden canopy, 12 groups of eight people sat in circles working together.  

I watched them talk and laugh with each other. I watched them write flip charts in a language I couldn’t read. I watched their energy lift as they worked through the afternoon. Given the level of the challenges they were up against and the amount of trauma that they had experienced, individually and collectively, I was struck by their level of hope—hope that was rising into action.

Looking at the group I thought of the temples of Angkor Wat that we had explored during our first meeting together. Temples that took centuries to build—and I thought about the fact that the people who had this big task to rebuild their country and repair their communities were descendants of the temple builders. I thought about the fact that persistence and vision and hope were part of their culture—culture that had been briefly lost, but they were now rebuilding.

Where do you find hope? Because what I witnessed wasn’t hope that was polly-annish or sparkly. It was more what I have come to describe as mature hope. Hope that has grown up. Hope that has known sorrow. Hope that knows how to roll its up sleeves and take on the hard tasks that are needed to rebuild and repair. And maybe that’s the hope we need to be able to trust right now. The hope that has known sorrow. The hope that is exhausted. The hope that has lost its shininess –but is not afraid of getting its hands dirty—and moving one simple stone.

 The Temple Builders

The temple builders are mostly tired

I think, not visionaries, so much as laborers

engaged in moving one stone at a time

with calloused hands and long ropes using

strength and leverage and hope.

One lifetime, one corner, one stone

is not the scale that we aspire to,

we want the finished temple before us

at the end of the day, we want to stand back

and admire our finished work, certainly

not our daily labor, one simple stone.

It isn’t some higher calling that gets them

up each morning, no, that is the old woman

who lived through the dark years,

the dark days, when no temples were built,

except deep, deep in the heart

where they could not be found,

or destroyed.

She knows, though they do not, why they

must build the temples, shifting them out of their

hearts, and onto the soil, one stone at a time.

She rouses them in the dark without apology,

for she knows without them the temples

will crumble and be buried in the hearts

of those who carried them for so long.

Now is the time for labor, she says, and she

hands them a pail of rice. This has built temples

for centuries, she says, and she doesn’t mean

the rice. Someone must hold the vision, she says,

and she doesn’t mean the temple,

or at least not the whole temple,

but the single stone

they will move today.

-Gretchen Schmelzer*

© 2025/2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*Written at the end of the day with the groups in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. 2005

Thruway

It’s not the car

but the longing

that pulls me forward--

that’s what mountains do

they have a hold

on my heart.

 

In my imagination

I take the next exit

to the trailhead,

the lake, or cabin.

 

These mountains

belong to somebody.

I can feel it.

Not because they

are owned,

but because

they are loved.

 

Someone loves

that ridge,

that forest,

that outcropping of

sandstone, shale.

 

Here someone

saw their first

lady slipper,

trillium, or hawk.

 

My father-in-law

walked the same

wood path after

work each day

past granite

under oaks and

pine.

And those trees

still stand vigil

at the edge

of the field,

waiting

faithfully—

they whisper

his name with love

in the wind.

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Longing

Longing

There are so many trees,

so many arms

reaching up to heaven.

Do they ever get tired?

 

I do.

 

There are so many trees

and I don’t know

which ones to climb

or which ones to

lean against and rest.

 

When their leaves

flutter in the wind

flashing green and grey

are they nervous or excited?

 

I wish I could see

their deep roots.

I wish I could see

how they hold

each other tight.

I wish I could see

what it takes

to grow forever.

 © 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

 

The Letter Your Teenager Can't Write You

Dear Parent:

This is the letter that I wish I could write. 

This fight we are in right now. I need it. I need this fight. I can’t tell you this because I don’t have the language for it and it wouldn’t make sense anyway. But I need this fight. Badly. I need to hate you right now and I need you to survive it. I need you to survive my hating you and you hating me. I need this fight even though I hate it too. It doesn’t matter what this fight is even about: curfew, homework, laundry, my messy room, going out, staying in, leaving, not leaving, boyfriend, girlfriend, no friends, bad friends. It doesn’t matter. I need to fight you on it and I need you to fight me back.

I desperately need you to hold the other end of the rope. To hang on tightly while I thrash on the other end—while I find the handholds and footholds in this new world I feel like I am in. I used to know who I was, who you were, who we were. But right now I don’t. Right now I am looking for my edges and I can sometimes only find them when I am pulling on you. When I push everything I used to know to its edge. Then I feel like I exist and for a minute I can breathe. I know you long for the sweeter kid that I was. I know this because I long for that kid too, and some of that longing is what is so painful for me right now.

I need this fight and I need to see that no matter how bad or big my feelings are—they won’t destroy you or me. I need you to love me even at my worst, even when it looks like I don’t love you. I need you to love yourself and me for the both of us right now. I know it sucks to be disliked and labeled the bad guy. I feel the same way on the inside, but I need you to tolerate it and get other grownups to help you. Because I can’t right now. If you want to get all of your grown up friends together and have a ‘surviving-your-teenager-support-group-rage-fest’ that’s fine with me. Or talk about me behind my back--I don’t care. Just don’t give up on me. Don’t give up on this fight. I need it.

This is the fight that will teach me that my shadow is not bigger than my light. This is the fight that will teach me that bad feelings don’t mean the end of a relationship. This is the fight that will teach me how to listen to myself, even when it might disappoint others. 

And this particular fight will end. Like any storm, it will blow over. And I will forget and you will forget. And then it will come back. And I will need you to hang on to the rope again. I will need this over and over for years.

I know there is nothing inherently satisfying in this job for you. I know I will likely never thank you for it or even acknowledge your side of it. In fact, I will probably criticize you for all this hard work. It will seem like nothing you do will be enough. And yet, I am relying entirely on your ability to stay in this fight. No matter how much I argue. No matter how much I sulk. No matter how silent I get.

Please hang on to the other end of the rope. And know that you are doing the most important job that anyone could possibly be doing for me right now.

Love, Your Teenager

*This is the tenth anniversary of the teen letter! This blog was originally published on June 23, 2015. The publication has been shared over 7 million times, has been published on other blogs, in magazine articles and books, It has been translated into ten languages that I know of , read by the famous french Actor, Franck Dubosc and has been made into dramatic pieces by church youth groups. I have received hundreds of letters from parents who figured out how to hang on to the rope when it was what was needed, and letters from people who were so grateful to parents who hung in there with them. I was lucky enough to have someone hold the rope for me when I was struggling through a particularly difficult stretch. The beautiful thing about someone holding the rope for you - about someone loving you anyway— is that it outlasts the particular struggle. You don’t remember what the fight was even about— but you carry the love forever.

© 2015/2025 Gretchen L Schmelzer PhD