From Clergy Intern Laura Solomon

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope.

The current news cycle seems extra full of anxiety and fear and despair.  In my discussions with people everywhere, it seems that many of us are reaching out, trying to find a little extra hope to hold onto. 
I recently read Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone.  Macy and Johnstone propose that we need “active hope”, which they describe as a process through which we actively participate in bringing about the change we are seeking.  Active hope is something we do rather than something we have.  It does not require optimism.  Rather, it requires that we are honest and look fully at reality.   

The authors encourage us to remember that our feelings of grief and fear and anger are real.  They urge us to be curious about our feelings, while knowing that grief, discomfort, outrage, and fear don’t stay unless we refuse to look at them.  “When we look at [our pain for the world],” Ms. Macy says in an “On Being” interview with Krista Tippett, “when we take it in our hands…It turns to reveal its other face, and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.”

Easier said than done, certainly, and yet I believe we were made for this.  I believe this ability to hold our grief and outrage for the world alongside our love for the world is the only way we have made it this far.  We need both sides of this spectrum: we could not know the depth of our love without the grief, and we would never be able to withstand the grief without our love.  “It’s okay for our hearts to be broken over the world,” Ms. Macy says. “What else is a heart for?”

The authors speak specifically about an “empowerment process” that can lead us towards active hope.  Active hope is about desire, not about outcomes, and following these steps helps us to create change by reminding us that we are “larger, stronger, deeper, and more creative than we have been brought up to believe.” 

The first step, gratitude, brings us into a sense of wonder for our world.  It reminds us of what we love and the gifts we have received through being present and alive.  This gratitude helps facilitate resilience to face the difficult realities that are also present.

The second step, “honoring our pain,” allows us to respect, welcome, and value our hurt and anguish, while also revealing our care and compassion for the world.  Accessing our compassion shows us our interconnectedness with all of life, such that we can experience our pain without fearing it.
Step three, “seeing with new eyes,” allows us to see the ways our pain is rooted in our belonging and love.  Seeing from this new framework opens new resources for us to draw upon new knowledge, ancient spiritual wisdom, and our own imaginations to envision a different future.

There is so much here to break our hearts, yet just on the other side of that breaking is the equally strong force of love.  We are stronger, more powerful, more resilient, and more creative than we have ever been taught to imagine. So maybe we let our hearts, so full of love and grief for the world, break open. 

What else is a heart for? 

In the hoping, loving, and breaking,

Laura