Hope is...Hope is not

Like Molly Brown

“Be humble because you are made of earth. Be noble because we are made of stars.” -Serbian Proverb

Hope is Not…

Hope is not airy-fairy, gossamer winged or candy-coated.

Hope is not just positive thinking or optimism.

Hope is not easy, it is gritty and daily and an ongoing personal and community decision.

Hope is not the end of a statement, it is the opening line of an ever evolving beginning.

Hope alone is not a strategy.

Hope Is…

Hope is getting up each day and (each in our own way) doing what we can to make this world a little better, kinder place.

Hope is risky business, because if you hope you take the risk of waking up one day and being disappointed—sometimes desperately so.

Hopes can flag, but the renewal of hope itself is always accessible, within us and between us.

Hope will ask you to dig deep, live better and truer, reach to one another for help and community and good ideas.

Hope believes in things yet unseen and dares to imagine what is possible.

Hope is a renewable resource

I was reading a story today about the journalist, Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly was one of the most amazing journalist who ever picked up a pen. She was born in 1864, she was 15 when her father died and she went to work to help support her mother and fourteen siblings. At that time women were rare in journalism and confined to writing primarily pieces on childcare and housework tips. She pressed back on these limitations as a writer and ended up eventually working for Joseph Pulitzer at the New York World, and went on to be a pioneer in her field, traveling on assignment to places never covered by women, and launching a new kind of investigative journalism by having herself committed (undercover) to a notorious state mental institution so that she could expose the utterly brutal conditions for women (and men) confined there, raising awareness to the suffering of the patients and need for continued reform. She did all of this in the time before 1919, when women lacked more than the right to vote. For much of the 19th century, the legal custom of “coverture” linked a woman's legal identity with her father or husband. Married women were therefore prohibited from owning or inheriting property, controlling finances and entering contracts or lawsuits.

My husband’s grandmother, Naomi, lived with us for the last years of her life. She was born in 1889. My Grandmother, Edna, was also born into a time when women had no voice in changing legislation that would effect them in life altering ways. We are not that far from a time when half of the country had no legal access to participate in the democratic process. We are still living in a time when there are direct efforts to limit the ability for all people to access their now legal right to vote.

"No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens." -Michelle Obama

We have come a long way, but in recent years we have seen enormous push back on the lives on personal and civil rights for women, persons of color and the LGBTQ+ community. There are complex reasons for why this is happening. I’m not a social scientist and do not pretend to know the workings of the minds of whole groups of people. But simply put, over 2000 years of the worst abuses of patriarchy will not go down easy and without a fight. And yet, a country limits the contributions of women at it’s own peril, losing the vital knowledge, gifts, strengths and insights of half of it’s collective.

I fully expect that our newsfeeds will be filled in the next months with subtle and flat out brazenly sexist and racist opinions and language. I resolve to not be pulled into the spectacle and click-baiting of these tactics. When a movement has embraced someone who promotes the most ugly kinds of this pushback as its standard bearer there is not much more to be done then rely on outdated troupes and ugly language devoid of democracy’s most beautiful and powerful values.

I resolve to not be pulled into hateful dialogue….and yes Michelle, when those who would push back on the gifts, capabilities and value of women and persons of color go low….we go high.

And So….

We are on a journey of hope, a journey of possibility, a journey of truth and love.

This is my song, Like Molly Brown….in celebration of the gifts of women, the strength of women, the hopes and work of our ancestors, and the continued work of all of us standing side by at this important time in history.

Question

How do you define the process of living hope?

As always please feel free to share with others who might appreciate the conversation here.