Hopeful

Despite the past week, we need to feed our hope

Photo by Sushobhan Badhai on Unsplash

The last week has been rough — especially for those who sit on the more liberal end of the political spectrum. But as much as we may want to give up and give in, as much as we may want to despair and wail and gnash our teeth at the abject horror that is coming from a very small number of loud and outspoken people…we can’t.

We have to have hope.

Like a seedling nestled in the ground, we need to protect that hope until it has time to flourish and grow into a better and more just world for everyone — not just rich white men.

In that spirit, I will leave you with three things to consider as we go forward — two quotes and a poem, all of which centre around hope.

I’m not paywalling this, so please feel free to share it widely…

“Hope is a fragile thing, Peter continued, as fragile as a flower. Its fragility makes it easy to sneer at, by people who see life as a dark and difficult ordeal, people who get angry when something they can’t believe in themselves gives comfort to others. They prefer to crush the flower underfoot, as if to say: See how weak this thing is, see how easily it can be destroyed. But, in truth, hope is one of the strongest things in the universe. Empires fall, civilizations vanish into dust, but hope always comes back, pushing up through the ashes, growing from seeds that are invisible and invincible.” — Michel Faber

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the Gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest Sea
Yet never in Extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” — Jack Layton