Jordan E. Cooper

The Rock of Hope

There was a story I once heard by a cartoonist named Marshall Ramsey, and it’s one that’s been helping me get through these last couple of weeks of darkness. It’s a story about a man and a little boy, who walked out to the pond together. The man reached down and picked up a small stone and threw it into the water. The splash from the rock caused rings to spread outward across the pond’s surface. Then, the water stilled again. The father picked up a second stone and threw it into the water. Once again, rings made ripples until the pond stilled again. The boy looked at his father with a quizzical look. “What are you doing, Dad?”

The father threw yet another stone and told his son. “Each stone represents a dream of mine. Me throwing it is the effort I put into turning my hopes into reality. The pond is the world around us. And the ripples show how my dreams can change the world.” The boy looked at his dad and said bluntly, “But the pond goes back to how it was. How do your dreams change the world?” The dad patted the little boy on the back and said “You’ll see, son. It will all become clearer to you someday.”

Days and years passed and the little boy continued to join his dad to throw rocks. And every day they’d go out into the world and work hard to turn their wildest hopes into reality.

When the boy was 25, his father suddenly passed away. The morning of the funeral, he went out to that old pond by himself. Angry at the world, he picked up the biggest rock he could find and heaved it into the water.“DAMN YOU!” he cursed the pond. “My father’s dreams didn’t change the world and mine won’t either!”

But instead of the sound of a splash that his stone usually made as it hit the water, this time, there was more of a clacking sound — more like the sound of rock hitting rock. And there, seemingly on top of the water, sat the stone.

The son stared curiously at rock. He then picked up a second one and threw it. Crack. It sat next to the first one. Year after year of throwing rocks into the pond had changed it after all. A little island began to form. Encouraged, the son continued to throw his rocks — now with greater intensity.

Day after day turned into year after year. That island of rocks grew and life began to form on it. A bird dropped an acorn on the rocky surface and a little oak began to take root. The son still threw rocks and was soon joined by his own son. Dreams flew into the sky and landed into the pond.

The little tree slowly turned into a bigger tree and soon shaded the island beneath its limbs. There was now standing an oak tree in the middle of what was once just a clear pond. “Why are we throwing rocks, dad?” the grandson asked the son. The father patted his son on the back and said, “That island never used to be there. Me and your grandfather built it with our hopes. And it’s time that you start throwing yours.”

No one rock changed that pond. It was the consistent effort of rock after rock after rock, day after day after day, year after year, after year. It is only with the consistency, and the faith, and fearlessness of looking crazy can those rocks ever begin to form into anything other than just stones at the bottom of a river.

And it is truly my belief, that if we all keep throwing our rocks, there will soon be an island that we get to call justice, an island that we get to call equality, an island that we get to call freedom, an island that we get to call the promised land. I don’t know if that’s an island we’ll get to see tomorrow, I don’t know if that’s an island we’ll get to see next week, I don’t know if that’s an island we’ll get to see next year but I know if we just keep on throwing... that water has no choice but to become something it ain’t never been before.

Don’t be afraid to throw your rock into the pond of this country. I know there are days where it seems your rock makes nothing but a small ripple in the pond, and I know there are days where it seems like that rock may just sink down to the bottom of darkness and disappear into a void of nothing. But I stand here to remind you that we are NOT the first rocks thrown into this pond. There are rocks from the warriors who endured four hundred years of Slavery, there are rocks from the survivors of concentration camps in Auschwitz, there are rocks from the blood-stained streets of Selma, Alabama, there are rocks from the voices of a generation against Vietnam, there are rocks from the graveyard of Gaza, and there are rocks from the frontlines of Minneapolis, Minnesota. We are NOT the first to be singing this song, we just the ones moving on to the next verse.

So next time you throw your rock into the pond of this dark world, don’t imagine the sound of a splash. Don’t imagine the sound of solid hope sinking to a floor. Imagine the sound of your rock, landing right on top of another piece of stone, a piece of stone that’s just been sitting there WAITING for somebody else to throw another rock of hope.

Delivered on Saturday January 31, 2026, at The People’s Filibuster, New York City