persistence

June 28, 2026

The Persistence of Hope

Our country remains hopeful. Despite many obstacles, we are among those who came here seeking a better life. Preceding us, our ancestors made their hope into reality. Indeed, the Native Americans first built lives here, aware of their partnership with the land they lived on. They respected the bounty of the precious ground on which they flourished before white men arrived.

George Bernard Shaw offered these words in his play “Back to Methuselah.”

I hear you say ‘Why?’ Always ‘Why?’ You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’

We still live in a world of possibilities.

Nonetheless, the American Psychological Association’s 2025 study, Stress in America 2025: A Crisis of Connection, finds significant evidence of loneliness, uncertainty, and worry about the future, including AI.

The APA’s paper also suggests that the toll of our societal division is matched by our resilience. The report states that “while (we are) burdened by stress and uncertainty, (the population) continues to hold fast to hope, agency and a belief in progress — both personal and collective.”

The world of 60 years ago was not so different.

On June 8, 1968, Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy delivered this eulogy for his brother, Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy. You will find the audio and text provided by the John F. Kennedy Library at the link above.

Bobby’s junior brother reminded us of Robert’s belief in who we are and the responsibilities that fall to us. His hopefulness in a 1966 speech applies today:

“Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”

In closing his tribute, Ted Kennedy called to mind his sibling’s love of George Bernard Shaw’s words:

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

‘Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.’

I hope you listen to the eulogy or read it. Prepare to be touched and uplifted.

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The first painting is Gustav Klimt’s Hope II from the Museum of Modern Art. Below is George Frederic Watts’s Hope from the Tate Museum. 

May 10, 2011

In Honor of Jay Perman: Speech to the Mather High School Class of 2011 on Behalf of the Zeolite Scholarship Fund

Jay A. Perman

It isn’t very often in life that you meet someone who does good and who is good. But today, you will get a chance to meet such a man and it will be in his name that we will make scholarship awards to a few of you.

He is a leader who does not glory in his leadership. He is a healer who works for the good of his patients and for the common good as the head of a great university. And he is a friend who has not forgotten his old friends.

The man is Dr. Jay Perman and all of us up here and in the first two rows are proud to say that we were his classmates.

Here at Mather.

Forty-seven years ago.

Not exactly yesterday.

All of us represent the Zeolite Scholarship Fund and graduated from Mather in June of 1964 or January of 1965.

Like you, most of us didn’t have very much money.

Like you, most of us had parents or grandparents who came here from another country.

And like you, most of us were more than a little unsure of what was possible for us in the future.

Jay’s parents came to Chicago from 5000 miles away in Eastern Europe and struggled to make ends meet. When Jay was in his first year in high school his father died. Thereafter, Jay’s mom supported the family by working as a seamstress, paid by the number of hats she completed in a day.

Jay is probably the only Mather graduate in history to become the President of a major university, in Jay’s case, the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

That school is about 700 miles east of Mather. But the interesting thing is, that in order to go from being a student at Mather to becoming the President of the University of Maryland, you have to travel an even greater distance.

It is not like the distance of an airplane flight from here to there.

It is not like the distance that Jay’s parents traveled from the Ukraine to Chicago.

Rather, it is the distance in here (your head), between where you are now and what you can imagine might be possible in your future.

And it is the distance in here (your heart), when you set your heart’s aim on what seems like an impossibly far away goal and give everything you have to achieve it.

It is easy, too easy for you sitting in this auditorium, to think that nothing very special will be possible for you.

It is easy, too easy, to think about the difficult economic conditions that prevail in the world today, and wonder if you will even be able to make a living.

In other words, it is easy to give up — too soon.

Let me tell you a story about that.

Two shoe salesmen were sent to Africa about 100 years ago by two different British shoe companies. Back then, Africa was a very primitive place and these men were sent to the most primitive parts of it.

The salesman from the first company wrote back to his home office in despair: “SITUATION HOPELESS. PEOPLE DON’T WEAR SHOES HERE!”

The second salesman also contacted his office, but his message was rather different: “GLORIOUS OPPORTUNITY. THE PEOPLE HERE DON’T HAVE SHOES YET!”

The point is, sometimes things depend on how you look at them.

If, like Jay Perman, you have talent, courage, and the imagination to see what might be possible for you, then, just maybe, you can become a pediatrician, as Jay is, and eventually a university president.

Sometimes thinking it is possible, makes it possible.

All of us here are waiting, putting some of our money in the form of scholarship awards for a few of you, betting on the possibility that you will do something both great — and good.

And if you do, your classmates will be as proud of you as we are… of Jay Perman.

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The photo of Dr. Jay Perman above is sourced from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.