Hope

I ran across this quote the other day listening to an On Being interview with Joanna Macy, and it reminded me of several separate discussions I’ve had over the last year about hope. The discussions were overlapping, but isolated, and each flavored and nuanced very differently, depending on whom I was talking with.

For some reason this quote seemed an appropriate epilogue to these conversations, and it particularly resonates with me now, where I am as an individual and living in this country.

MS. MACY: … I’m not insisting that we be brimming with hope. It’s OK not to be optimistic. Buddhist teachings say feeling that you have to maintain hope can wear you out. So just be present.

MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] That’s good. Yes.

MS. MACY: The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful, or hopeless, or pessimistic, or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here, and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.