Echoes of Hope, Shadows of Dreams
From "Where the Streets Have No Name" to "Street of Dreams", my former classmates U2 (yes!) - have journeyed.
U2 playing at Mount Temple School Open Day 1978
© Des Clark
I'd like to think, I have, in my own way of course - also journeyed.
Where Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry have written and played about social division, poverty, and religious conflict, I've photographed. Not literally in the same places they sing about, but in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Bosnia.
On hearing their latest track "Street of Dreams" - and the background to the lyrics - my mind went to all sorts of places. And people.
verse
God, hear me shout
Lend your ear to my prayer when I′m far from anywhere
Down to my last breath of air
God, hear me shout
Lend your ear to my prayer when I'm far from anywhere
Down to my last breath of air
chorus
La calle
Calle de los sueños
All the doors are open on the street of dreams
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Broken are the chosen on the street of dreams
verse
Be here
Be free
Be yourself
And then free me
Your fate? (Gonna fight it)
Your trust? (Won′t be denied)
This bus? (Gonna ride it)
To the street of dreams
chorus
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Justice, an obsession on the street of dreams
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Love in a procession down the street of dreams
verse
Break out
Break through
Break in
Your dream needs you
Your life? (Gonna find you)
Your fear? (Not gonna blind you)
Random angels? (Gonna guide you)
To the street of dreams
chorus
La calle
Calle de los sueños
All the doors are open on the street of dreams
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Broken are the chosen on the street of dreams
bridge
Don't you give up on your dreams
For the many, not just the few
Don't you give up and your dreams
Won′t give up on you
chorus
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Justice, an obsession on the street of dreams
La calle
Calle de los sueños
Love is a procession down the street of dreams
outro
God, hear me shout
Lend your ear to my prayer when I′m far from anywhere
Down to my last breath of air
Writer(s): Adam Clayton, Dave Evans, Larry Mullen, Paul David Hewson
Hours later - you gotta believe it(!) - I've emerged holding 15 images which I'd like to share here.
But before that, just to set some context.
If there's one thing - yes just one - that really lubricates my engines - is when words like Hope and Dreams are mentioned.
Because, if there's anything that's universal on this planet, it's those two words. Yes I know there are more - death and taxes as Benjamin Franklin wrote about a few centuries ago - but those aside, it's the things that we dream of, what we hope for, how we manage when those dreams are dashed, is the stuff of countless songs, films, and books.
And of real life.
Central Mosul after the fighting with ISIS
Start over…
Yes I've witnessed the bombs and the bullets - but it's on hearing the stories of people who have physically survived the traumas, talk about their lack of hope and their futures being ruined, that hits me the hardest. By far.
There's a book in the Old Testament (of the Bible) called Proverbs. Chapter 13 and verse 12 of that book reads “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Or as Eugene Peterson translated in The Message paraphrase, “Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick, but a sudden good break can turn life around.”
I like Eugene Peterson’s word “unrelenting” here. We all wish and hope for things - some trivial, some definitely not trivial - that just don’t happen. Most of the time we move on. But it’s those dreams that are continually dashed, time and time again that is, initially, wearisome - but can eventually “make the heart sick”.
Turn on any news outlet, listen to any current affairs podcast or read news feeds on-line and you’re bombarded with negativity, fear and gloom. Try to find hope in all this and you’ll be searching. No wonder there’s so much talk about burnout, mental health issues and the like.
Load onto that our own hopes and dreams deflating, or outright burst, where we somehow have to pick up the pieces and move on.
And - you know - people do. Not everyone, and not every time either, but buried deep in humanity is reslilence.
For me, that word suggest more grit and determination than outright hope. Maybe we have to show that resilience first, before hope re-emerges. I’ve seen people in Mosul literally pick up the pieces of their destroyed home and possessions to begin to start over. It’s hard to say that right there and then, there’s much, or indeed any, real hope. But over time, when things start to take shape again, when the basic necessities of shelter, food and water are there, maybe even income, then the faintest glimmer of hope may start to develop, much like a dormant flower bulb starts to grow, at first underground - unseen, after a deep cold dark winter.
And so back to those 15 images I picked out, why I chose them, and what they say to me about hopes and dreams.
Do you have any particular images that speak to you about your own hopes and dreams?
