Hope is how we give ourselves to the future
Antidotes for inevitable questions. . . Is hope a luxury? Is it irresponsible? Should we even HAVE hope?
In our recent town hall with students, faculty and three of our podcast guests, we asked the students our signature question, “How are you building hope?” Someone said, “That’s assuming we even have hope,” and everyone laughed. We recognized the awkwardness of talking about hope in such perilous times of climate crisis, social justice upheavals, economic unraveling, rising fascism, oppression, injustice . . .
To counter the very natural, inevitable doubts that sometimes arise, I recommend leaning into hope, rather than giving in to the naysayers. Today, I’m offering my favorite “hope” quotes. (Not to be confused with the 1998 film, “Hope Floats,” starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr.)
May one of these gems stick with you and pop up just when you need it.
“Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.” ~ Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.” ~ Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
“We often say people need to feel hope to act. But action gives rise to hope. Joanna Macy calls this ‘active hope’.” ~ Dr. Jennifer Atkinson, podcast “Facing It”
Hope is “. . . not waiting to be rescued by some savior; it’s waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act. And this takes risk.” Joanna Macy, Active Hope
“Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace
“Hope is an active state of mind, a recognition that change is nonlinear, unpredictable, and arises from intentional engagement. It is not a matter of estimating the odds.” Jeremy Lent
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door. . . . To hope is to give yourself to the future—and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
What’s your take on this? How are you building hope?
As Antonia Malchik suggests in a recent post, rest too is a resistance. And, one might add, this is active only in a nonviolent sense of inertial holding fast when the deluge of destructiveness is pushing us toward the next deadly cascade towards hell. As Jesus is reported to have answered when asked "What's the sign of the divine in you?," or some such. "It is a movement and a rest." Not necessarily whether to take up arms against a sea of woes, literally or figuratively, or not, but to simply to rest, perhaps gathering something more powerful than arms with which to bring about the new dawn.