Good Intentions
I wrote a short little essay on hope in January 2025. It wasn’t polished, but it was from the heart. I wasn’t sure how to wrap it up. I decided to let it sit and then I would figure it out. The weather channel was predicting a snowstorm that would shut down the area where I live for the weekend and maybe into the next week. Wahoo!
Maintaining Hope in the Wake of Alex Pretti’s Murder
The next day, I heard about the second murder in Minneapolis of an observer.
I watched footage.
Multiple angles.
Slo-mo.
Social media algorithms fed me more information about what the people of Minneapolis were experiencing. I witnessed the faces, voices, and bodies of Minnesotans under attack. For the next week, my anger boiled. My fear mushroomed. My hope shriveled.
I remembered what I had written about Hope.
It felt like Pollyanna-ish schlock.
Then I started seeing stories of ordinary people helping their neighbors.
Food pantries and deliveries. Mutual aid. Neighborhood patrols. Walking children home. Giving rides to the stunned and traumatized people who were released from the Whipple Building without phones, wallets, or coats.
THAT!
That is hope in action.
Hope is in the doing.
I learned that when my family helped with post-tornado cleanup a couple of years ago. There was so much destruction. It felt overwhelming. But, when we cleared rubble and chopped up fallen trees, we could see the little difference we could make in one neighborhood.
Amelia, Mr. Loken, and two teenaged sons take a break during post-tornado-clean-up.
Yes, hope means taking action.
I returned to my little essay. Reread it. Tweaked it.
I rekindled my testimony of Hope
When we are traumatized, wounded, and ready to give up, we are at our most vulnerable. It seems we have two choices. Anger or despair. Anger is deliciously intoxicating. It is an amphetamine that keeps us hyped and vigilant and ready to go another round. But when it wears off again, we are left with the darkness. Despair is an opiate that invites us to lay down our load and collapse. It pretends to be resting place, but it is a mire of quicksand that will suck us down and won’t let us go without a fight.
Anger and Despair pretend that we have only two choices. One or the other.
The warrior running on fumes or the fallen saint that cannot lift itself or anyone else anymore.
But always, there is Hope.
I’ve seen a description floating around the internet that says something like this:
People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.
I love it. I really love that description. It paints a picture of resilience and grit that is oh-so-seductive. We want to be that fighter. We want to be the underdog that keeps going no matter what. This type of winsome character is in our movies and our TV shows and favorite books.
But I’d like to paint another picture, if you’ll let me.
Hope is demanding
Hope is like your mother, your bossy older sister, that teacher that you admire but wish wouldn’t have such high standards, or your uncle that has more common sense than cool-factor.
Hope reminds you to go to bed early, because your body can’t survive on four hours of sleep and caffeine for more than a day or three.
Hope tells you to have a good cry and will hold you, then wipe your tears and give you an assignment to do the next thing that needs doing.
Hope will sit next to you at a funeral, in a foxhole, at a vigil, then follow you home and sit with you in your grief. But that same Hope will then annoyingly remind you that life didn’t end there. You still have more to do. More to offer. More to share. You may turn your back on hope, but it is annoyingly persistent.
Hope reminds you to wear warm layers while protesting in Minnesota or to wear sunscreen and a hat while taking care of your neighbors in Los Angeles. Hope tells you to stay hydrated, because this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. You need to take care of your body so you can take care of others.
Hope tells you to volunteer to do the scary thing that is new and different.
Hope tells you to pace yourself and take breaks.
Hope tells you to get organized, to have a plan, to work as a team, to listen to others and their ideas.
Hope tells you that you can’t win on your own. Winning doesn’t even matter if you’re the only one crossing the finish line. This isn’t a race anyway. It’s a journey.
Hope is adjusting your stride so you can walk together.
Hope is noticing moments of joy and celebrating them.
Hope is singing – all alone and a little off-key if you have to. But if you sing long enough, others will join you. It may still be off-key, but maybe you’ll find a way of harmonizing. Music lifts the soul. It regulates breathing. Singing opens up your posture and resonates throughout your body.
Hope is stretching – physically, emotionally, mentally. Keeping yourself flexible and limber. Letting yourself and others feel deeply. Making space for others’ perspectives.
Hope is also making a sacred space for yourself. Having alone time to regroup. To process. To meditate. To pray.
Hope is spending time in nature and remembering the rhythm of being.
Hope is looking up at the night sky to feel tiny.
Hope is looking at a baby or a little child and getting lost in the wonder of humanity.
So, how do we make a world that is a safer, better place for kids… and generally all humans?
We have to demand more of ourselves
During my writing journey, I’ve had many times when I was ready to give up. Imagining up whole new worlds, characters, and plotlines takes so much heart, then you have to go peddle them to literary agents, editors, readers. And when no one is interested in the imaginings of your heart, it feels like they aren’t just rejecting the product of your imagination, they are rejecting YOU.
That rejection is painful. It requires long walks, long talks, long cries, and many bowls of ice cream to recover.
Most importantly, it requires courage. It requires discomfort. It requires showing up to put your heart and yourself out there. Again and again.
I feel uncomfortable just writing that out.
I’m exhausted at the end of the day.
But aren’t you more exhausted by feeling anger, frustration, disappointment, hurt and having nowhere for those feelings to go than to just boil like a screaming kettle inside your chest?
Find a purpose. Look up an organization, you’re interested in joining. Set a goal. Use the power of those exhausting feelings to build something. Something good. Build something good. Do something helpful. Do it right where you live.
Build it. Do it.
Desmond Tutu, who worked at dismantling apartheid for decades is quoted as saying:
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
It doesn’t have to be a lot.
It doesn’t need to have a wide impact.
As Nike reminds us: Just Do It.
Do something good.
Allow me to offer an encouraging send-off in the form of a song that keeps me hopeful.
One Voice – The Wailin’ Jennys
It’s a quiet song that builds. I love cranking it loud so I can hear the gorgeous vocals blending and braiding together. It feels like a melodic version of community building and mutual aid.