Last week, my husband and I were watching an old episode of The Newsroom. If you don’t know the show, that’s totally understandable because it only ran for 2 seasons 10 years ago. All you need to know is that it’s a workplace drama built around a nightly cable news show and it (inexplicably) is set about 18 months in the past, so it has the characters covering real news events that have already happened. 

The episode we were watching covered the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January of 2011. In the episode, the show is live on TV and the characters are scrambling to figure out whether the congresswoman survived the shooting, as several news outlets had begun reporting her death (this really happened). The staff gets pressure from their bosses to report her as deceased so they don’t look like they have out of date information, even though her death hadn’t been confirmed. There’s a solemn shot of a man (Joey) in the control room putting together a graphic with “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, 1970-2011” about to be displayed on the show. In a dramatic confrontation, our cast of heroes shout down their boss, saying that she is a person, and that the news doesn’t get to decide that she’s dead. 

Of course, we all know that our heroes are right, and Rep. Giffords miraculously survives the attack. After an admittedly heart-warming sequence of reporters looking up from their phones going “She’s alive!” “She’s alive!,” the executive producer runs into the control room and is seen passing along the news as the climax of the background music (Coldplay’s “Fix You” – a 2000’s surefire bet for amping up the emotional tension of a scene) floods and the voices of the characters fade away. The show cuts back to Joey, the slides guy. 

On his computer, he highlights the “1970-2011” under Rep. Giffords name, and deletes it. He looks up at the executive producer with an almost smile.¹ 

I have been thinking about that shot since. It’s a moment of hope, that there’s still a chance. Obviously there would be months of surgeries, recovery, and a life-altering brain injury ahead, but in that moment – the story is not over yet. It makes me think a little of the disciples after the resurrection. Things are dark, the future is uncertain, but it’s not over yet. That’s powerful, and beautiful, and appeals to a deep, God-designed craving in us to see miraculous things happen. 

The other part of the reason I’ve been thinking about it is because it seems wild that they pulled off that heavy-hitting of an emotional moment with a visual of highlighting and deleting text. Not a scene at the shooting, not a dramatic run through the hospital where she’s wheeled away for surgery. Just a random guy, who didn’t know Rep. Giffords, and who was thousands of miles away, deleting some text. This is, plot-wise, their moment of the superhero pulling themselves slowly up off the ground just when you thought they were beat. And they represented it with a few clicks on what is basically a propresenter slide. 

And isn’t that closer to what it actually looks like? Doesn’t real, miraculous, hope often look more like a text reaching out for help, or showing up at a meeting, or dryly delivered news in a hospital room, than it does one big climatic victory? 

Right out of college, I had a job working on child sexual assault and trafficking cases in Southeast Asia. I had been living overseas for less than a week, and wound up tagging along with a team for a trial of a man who abused multiple girls in the group home he was running. We went, we sat in court, people said things, I understood nothing, then we got up and left. As we stood outside the courtroom, our team’s lawyer looked at me and rapidly translated – “convicted, will serve 12 years, 4 for each count, 3 different counts.² Can you send that to HQ?” 

I jotted the charges, convictions and sentences down in my notepad. Then I looked up and everyone on my team was chatting animatedly. One of them looked over at me – “There’s a very good noodle shop down the road, is that ok for lunch?” I nodded, and the animated chatting continued on, which I now, with my weak language skills, noticed was about the noodle shop. 

Was this it? Was this what a conviction felt like? Was this what justice looked like? Was this what hope looked like? I found myself surprised that there was no jumping and cheering, no orchestral swell, just coworkers planning their lunch break. They were glad to have the sentence, but they knew that real hope was a lot more than one moment of victory. Our team had been working with the victims in this case for a year, they provided therapy, safe housing, medical care, access to education. They had been in the weeds with them, caring for them for a long time, and knew there was still a long way to go. 

Our work, in churches, in non-profits, walking alongside people, walking alongside communities, doesn’t look like a superhero movie, where the camera pulls in close as you pull yourself up off the ground one more time. It often looks like highlighting and deleting text. It looks like consistent small growth, like trying again when you so considered giving up. 

So let’s celebrate those wins that don’t come with background music. A deleted block of text can mean hope, an additional line on a spreadsheet can be an echo of the Spirit’s work, an email from a new client, an extraordinary act of faith. Be on the lookout for those moments this week, and celebrate them as they come. 

1. Here is the clip, which I do not claim to own or have license for and which has significant obscenity around the 4-minute mark. ↩︎
2. In the legal system of the country where I was living, verdicts and sentences were issued simultaneously. ↩︎