LEARNING TO USE HOPE TOOLS

My specialty is hope tools. How funny is that, given my usual relationship with tools in general? Show me a bread knife and I’ll serve you a lopsided slice. Hand me a pair of knitting needles and you’ll doom yourself to the thankless task of picking up dropped stitches until I finally give up and hand you back the needles for good. Offer me a corkscrew and then plan to wait while I learn to use it—for the hundredth time. Did I say it was funny that my specialty would be tools? I understated it. It’s hilarious!

Wondering how such a thing could have happened to a klutz like me, I chalk it up to one main factor, something that sets my history with hope tools apart from previous ambivalent encounters with knitting needles, corkscrews and bread knives. I’ve been curious about hope tools, how they work, when they work, what difference they make. And because I have been curious about them, when it comes to hope tools, I’ve been willing to practice, falter, learn, refine, practice more, falter often, learn more, refine more and keep on practising.

I’ve practiced on sick people, suicidal people, dying people, confused people, angry people and teachers on disability leave. I’ve practiced on nurses and social workers and secretaries and therapists and journalists and occasionally even with doctors. I’ve practiced on wives of ALS patients and husbands of Alzheimer patients and children of diabetics and parents of children who reported sexual abuse. I’ve practiced at conferences and support group meetings and board retreats and management training events. I’ve twinkled in the laughter of smart people with brain injury and trembled under the critical scrutiny of classes in educational psychology.

The more I practiced, the more I noticed how much I was enjoying those hope tools. The more I enjoyed them, the more tools I got. I got so many I couldn’t fit them into an hour, or a day, or a week. Still I find myself preparing to practice, falter, learn and practice again. It’s that old curiosity coming to call. Had I worked so hard with corkscrews, I might be winning awards for tending bar!