HOPE motivates us with language that is unclear. As though it is encircled by a verbal hole—a hole infiltrated by something unsaid. Like what happened that morning of December 18, 1989, in the city of Timisoara in eastern Rumania, near the border with Yugoslavia.

This event began with President Ceausescu’s decision to expel a pastor from Hungary who had been speaking bluntly about the evils of the Rumanian dictatorship. The pastor was well